
Class_B5-iZiI 
Book .7/6 



RELIGION AND 
IMMORTALITY 

BY 
G. LOWES DICKINSON 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(f ()e Stitaecjjtbe ^vt0^, Camlintige 
1911 






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Published May iqii 



I 



// 



PREFACE 



<3 



Of the essays included in this volume, the first two 
have already appeared in the Hibhert JournaU and the 
last in the Independent Review. They are reprinted 
here by the kind permission of the editors of those 
publications. The third essay is the IngersoU Lecture 
delivered at Harvard University in 1909, and has 
been previously published in the United States, by 
Houghton Mifflin Company. 

Though the essays were written at different times, 
the same point of view runs through them all. And 
readers who were interested in a previous book by the 
same author — " Religion : a Criticism and a Forecast " 
— may perhaps be glad to have this volume as a sup- 
plement, dealing, in a similar spirit, more particularly 
with the question of the survival of death. 

King's College, Cambridge, England, 
February, 1911. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Faith and Knowledge ... 1 

II. Optimism and Immortality . . 24 

III. Is Immortality Desirable.^ . . 49 

IV. Euthanasia 82 



L 




RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

In the course of the last half-century a change, 
curious and to some minds disconcerting, appears 
to have come over the leaders of freethought. 
They are, perhaps, not less, but more sceptical 
than they were ; but they seem also to be more 
believing. They question things that an earlier 
generation never thought of challenging ; but 
they affirm what it would have regarded as 
superstitions or dreams. George Meredith, for 
example, while rejecting God and Immortality, 
demands our worship for what he calls ^^ Earth." 
Mr. Bernard Shaw, repudiating the whole of our 
morals and our science, announces a new religion 
of ^^ Life-Force." Even Nietzsche, after denying 
all sense to the words ^^ good " and ^^true," pro- 
pounds in the end a new ethics, and a new 
cosmology. Our modern poets and prophets, it 
would seem, are at once sceptical and credulous. 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

They have no sooner smashed the old idols than 
they set up new ones in their place. What are we 
to think of this attitude ? What does it really 
mean ? An attempt to answer this question may 
perhaps throw some light upon that most vexed 
and most interesting of questions, the future of 
religion. 

To some minds, as suggested above, and these 
not the least strong and sincere, the tendency we 
are noticing is simply disconcerting. They feel it 
to be a sign of weakness or of disingenuousness. 
They hold that a final position was conquered by 
human thought in the course of the eighteenth 
and early nineteenth centuries ; that the method 
and limits of our knowledge were then definitely 
fixed ; and that to go back from, or to pretend to 
go beyond that position is a kind of feebleness or 
treachery. The attitude they adopt is, in short, 
that of Positivism ; and they hold this to be also 
the attitude of science. That, however, I believe 
to be an error ; and an error which it is important 
to expose. Positivism is not science, it is philo- 
sophy; and philosophy as little established as 
any other. It takes the existing limits of human 
experience, or those which are conventionally 
accepted as such, and dogmatizes that they are 
ultimate and final ; it takes the postulates which 

2 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

science finds it convenient and useful to employ — 
those of cause and effect^ of space and time, and 
of matter in space and time existing and moving 
independently of mind — and it dogmatizes that 
these are ultimate truths. Now, it only needs 
an extra dose of scepticism, or of imagination, to 
discredit all this. But to discredit it is not to 
discredit science, of which the results, not the 
hypotheses, are its title to our respect. Within the 
limits of its applicability, science works ; but the 
limits are narrow ; and the human spirit experi- 
ences or divines much that extends beyond them. 
What is more, even the subject-matter of science 
it apprehends in a way which is not that of science. 
While science is analyzing and describing, it is 
feeling ; while science is measuring, it is speculat- 
ing ; while science is observing, it is creating. 
That is no cause of quarrel with science ; but it 
is cause of quarrel with Positivism, which is 
one method of speculation and feeling trying to 
smother all the others. Positivism claims to be 
reasonable, and so to have a right to coerce the 
Intellect. It is nothing of the kind, and it has 
no such right; it is one of the religions of the 
world and, like other religions, it has its rivals. 
To some minds this statement may seem para- 
doxical ; but I have not advanced it as a paradox. 
B 2 3 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

I believe it to be true, if not a truism, and I will 
not labour it further. I shall suppose it to be 
granted ; but then, granting it, there remains a 
position more carefully chosen and equally hostile 
to imaginative prospects. Our knowledge, it may 
be admitted, is but a flickering lamp sheltered by 
a paper shade from the winds of infinite space ; 
the postulates on which science rests are tentative 
hypotheses, possibly untrue, certainly inadequate ; 
our experience is limited by our senses and by the 
structure of our mind ; and we have no philosophy 
that is demonstrably true. Granting all that, 
what ought, at any moment, to be our attitude 
toward the unknown ; towards all that part of our 
experience which science has not ordered ; towards 
what may lie behind and be presupposed in what 
we touch and see and hear? It ought, says this 
position, to be an attitude of pure agnosticism. 
We do not know, therefore we must not feel ; we 
cannot prove, therefore we must not speculate. 
We must admit the great Beyond, and then leave 
it severely alone. There is no room in a true 
man's mind for feelings or conjectures, still less 
for great imaginative visions, cathedrals of the 
spirit throbbing with sound and intense with light. 
What we do not know, we do not know ; that is 
the first and last word on the subject. 

4 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

For this attitude^ or at least for many of those 
who represent it^ I have a profound respect. Only 
a very strong and a very sincere man can accept 
and adhere to it with all its implications^ intellectual 
and emotional. If it gives no light or inspiration^ 
neither does it foster superstitions or dreams. It 
is a shining brazen rampart against the tides of 
human credulity. Nevertheless I hold that it is 
an attitude undesirable^ if not impossible, not 
merely for the mass but for the chosen spirits of 
mankind. And for this reason. As I read Man 
he is a creature not finish ed_, even approximately ; 
not definitely and once for all fitted out with what 
we call human nature, with just these five senses 
we possess, and just this form of intellect. He is 
a being in process of creating himself. What he 
is not is more important than what he is ; his 
divinations and guesses than his certainties ; his 
imaginations than his facts. For him to tie him- 
self down to what he knows and to ignore what 
he does not know, would be to commit a kind 
of suicide. He would cease to grow and would 
ossify into his present monstrous and transitional 
shape ; would become, at last, a mere shell, and 
an ugly shell at that, housing not the living thing 
that built it, but a corpse. He has in him a 
principle of growth, what I will call Imagination, 
5 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

since some word one must use. And by this he 
stretches feelers into the Dark^ laying hold there It 
of stuff, and building mythologies and poems^ the 
palaces of splendid hopes and desires. 

^^ What^ then^ do you suggest ? " the reader may 
ask. ^^ Do you suggest that everybody is to be- 
lieve anything he likes about anything ? Or any- 
thing that some Church tells him to believe }" No ! 
These are exactly the positions I wish to avoids 
and to distinguish from my own. And^ firsts I I 
would say that I do not think belief is the right 
word to apply to the attitude that I am describing. 
One believes what one knows ; and in the region 
of which I am speaking one does not know. What 
I am driving at is rather a tentative apprehension, 
not caring much about the intellectual forms in 
which it finds expression, but caring very much 
about the substance with which it imagines it 
comes into contact. Its proper language, there- 
fore, is not assertion but suggestion, not logic but 
passion, not prose but poetry. Poetry has been 
the raw material of all dogma ; and such poetry 
is neither true nor false ; it only becomes false 
or true, or both at once, at the moment when it 
is formulated as a creed. Whether such formula- 
tions have done more good than harm to the world, 
is a large historical question on which I do not 

6 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

here enter. I am not defending dogmas and 
creeds : I am defending mythology. Only what 
I mean by mythology is not mere fiction ; it is a 
first apprehension of some Reality. You may call 
it a dream ; but then^ as the poet says — 

\ The dream is an atmosphere ; 
A scale still ascending to knit 
The clear to the loftier Clear. 
'Tis Reason herself, tiptoe 
At the ultimate bound of her wit, 
On the verges of Night and Day. 



The dream is the thought in the ghost ; 
The thought sent flying for food ; 
Eyeless, but sprung of an aim 
Supernal of Reason, to find 
The great Over-Reason we name 
Beneficence : mind seeking Mind. 
Dream of the blossom of Good, 
In its waver and current and curve." ^ 

This kind of ^^ dream " it is^ the v-n-ap, that I am 
trying to indicate. Let me ofFer^ as an example^ 
the great lyric which closes Goethe's Faust, 

**Alles Vergangliche, 
1st nur ein Gleichniss ; 
Das Unzulangliche, 
Hier wird's Ereigniss ; 



^ From George Meredith's poem, ** A Faith on Trial." 

7 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

Das Unbeschreibliche, 
Hier ist's gethan ; 
Das Ewig-Weibliche 
Zieht uns hinan." 

Is this fiction ? Is it dogma ? No ! it is some- 
thing more than the one^ and less than the other. 
And the attitude of the poet's mind when he 
wrote it_, and of the reader's when he reads it with 
understandings is the one I am trying to describe. 
What am I to call it ? Another phrase of Goethe's 
helps me. ^^ Ich bleibe beim gl'aubigen Orden/' 
^'I adhere to the sect of the faithful." And 
that word ^^ faith/' for lack of a better^ I shall 
adopt here^ as I have adopted it elsewhere ; 
only hoping that the reader will not insist 
that ^*^ faith" can only mean ^^ believing what 
we know to be untrue/' and that he will endeavour 
to seize my idea rather than boggle at my 
terms. 

I will say^ then^ returning to the point at which 
I started^ that our modern freethinkers^ as dis- 
tinguished from those of fifty years ago^ are 
constructing mythologies on a basis of faith. But, 
then, it may be said, if they want a faith at all, 
why do they not accept the old one, which has at 
least the advantage that it embodies centuries of 
experience, is steeped in centuries of emotion, 
and is furnished with a ritual centuries old ? It 

8 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

may be replied that some of them do ; for some of 
them are members of Christian Churches and are 
trying very sincerely to pour the new wine into 
the old bottles. I do not think^ however^ that the 
attempt is likely to be successful ; and it is import- 
ant for my purpose that F should give my reasons 
for that opinion. The task is not an easy one^ for 
Christianity^ though definite in the sense that it 
is a creed_, is necessarily indefinite in the sense 
that it is a faith. It is easy to formulate its 
dogmas ; but it is not easy to say what people in 
general understand or have understood by it^ or 
what kind of appeal it makes, or has made^ to 
their emotions. Christianity^ in fact^ as a faith^ is 
not one but many. So that it is hazardous^ and to 
some may seem presumptuous,, to say anything at 
all about it. Stilly after all^ the many faiths must 
be determined somehow by the one creed. If 
they are all alike Christian^ they must have 
something in common ; and it is that common 
something at which I am driving. Why do many 
freethinkers^ I am askings find that Christianity^ 
in any of the forms it assumes^ is an inadequate 
vehicle of their faith ? Not merely^ I should say^ 
because Christianity is also a creed^ and con- 
sequently makes upon the intelligence rigid 
demands for which it cannot supply credentials. 
9 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

Nor merely because it is full of contradictions^ and 
creates more difficulties than it solves. All that 
might conceivably be tolerated now^ as it has 
been tolerated by great minds in the past^ if it 
were not that the Christian teachings in many 
important respects^ no longer helps but hinders 
us in expressing our view of the world and of 
society. Let us try to see how. Christianity 
tells us that the world was created by an omni- 
potent and all-good God. I will not press the 
difficulty, so often urged and never answered, 
which arises from the admitted fact of Evil. But 
apart from this, the idea of creation has ceased to 
be credible ; and, what is worse, has ceased to be 
interesting. It is the idea of process with which 
we are preoccupied. Is this process also a pro- 
gress } If so, what are its laws } Whither does it 
tend.^ What is the relation of human life and 
human ideals to the universe ? Is Man a tem- 
porary accident ? Or is he, or something that is 
coming out of him, the goal and meaning of the 
Whole ? These are the kind of questions we are 
asking. And Christianity has either no answer to 
give, or answers that are felt to be inadequate or 
absurd. But if that be so, Christianity cannot 
serve as an expression of our emotional reaction 
to the world. For such expression we have to 
10 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

turn elsewhere_, and construct for ourselves^ if we 
can^ new myths. 

Again^ whatever the Power be that sustains the 
worlds we cannot conceive it to be a person^ even 
if we knew what a person meant. Still less can 
we identify it with the person of Jesus Christ ; 
or feel that our attitude towards it has anything 
in common with the sentimental^ almost erotic 
character of many Christian hymns. 

** Jesu, lover of my soul, 
Let me to Thy bosom fly." 

What ! The Power that is supposed to have 
created the stars and the tiger^ to be thus per- 
sonified and thus addressed ! Need I say any 
more on this subject.^ But can I say less .^ 

Next^ if we turn from cosmology to ethics^ we 
are met with the same inadequacy. It is the 
essence of Christianity to dwell upon the idea of 
sin. In the original myth all men were damned 
because of Adam's sin. But I will not press that 
point ; for I suppose most Christians now explain 
it away^ or set it aside. The fact_, however^ 
remains that the sense of sin is the centre of all 
Christian ethics. Now this^ I believe,, is an attitude 
becoming increasingly unreal to most serious men. 
They have^ I suppose^ many of them^ a sense that 
11 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

they sin ; but not that they are ^^ miserable 
sinners/' The general confession repeated every 
Sunday in our churches would seem_, I believe^ to 
most of the worshippers^ if they really thought 
about it^ quite absurdly untrue to their feeling. 
^^ There is no health in us/* That^ surely^ is the 
last thing a healthy man or woman believes. 
And to repeat it every Sunday^ with the knowledge 
that a week hence it will be repeated again^ and 
be as much or as little true as before ! There is 
surely something about all this that is quite out 
of focus. But it is something which must be 
admitted^ I think^ to be essential to Christianity. 
For Christianity insists upon the essential weak- 
ness of man. It allows him no strength save 
what is derived from somewhere else^ from Jesus 
Christ. And here^ again^ is a point on which I 
must permit myself to speak frankly^ though I 
hope not offensively. How many men are really 
aware of any such personal relation to Jesus 
Christ as the Christian religion presupposes ? How 
many^ if they told the honest truths really hold 
him to be even the ideal man ? I cannot accept 
the answer that that is merely because men 
are wicked. It is many^ perhaps most^ of the 
best men to whom this whole conception of ^^ miser- 
able sinners '' redeemed by the intervention, in the 
12 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

past and in the present^ of Jesus Christ, is simply 
without any meaning at all. They may admire 
Jesus Christ as a beautiful personality. But they 
can never feel Him to be a Power working 
mysteriously in them ; at most they may feel Him 
an inspiration or an example, as other men also 
may be. The real moral attitude of such men 
finds no expression in the forms of Christianity. 
And, once more, if they are to have a mythology 
they must go elsewhere. 

I have thus barely indicated some of the many 
considerations which make it difficult, if not im- 
possible, for modern men feeling the need of a 
religion to accept Christianity. I have tried to 
show, in a word, that the bottle is old ; and, as 
I have said, I do not believe that it can be 
stretched to hold the new wine. I am interested 
rather in the question, what the new wine is. 
What must be the content of any faith that is 
really to appeal to the best and the most intelligent 
modern men ? This is a question upon which it 
would be impertinent to dogmatize ; nor could it 
be decided by any one mind, even the greatest, 
nor by a single generation. Perhaps, however, 
I may venture upon some tentative suggestions, 
with a view to concentrating reflection upon the 
problem. I do not try to impose upon the reader 
13 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

my own view. I ask him only to come along with 
me^ agreeing where he may^ dissenting where he 
must^ as we feel together in the dark^ along this 
new road one day to be trodden by thousands and 
by millions. 

In the first place^ then^ if men are to have a 
faith which will help them at all^ it must be one 
which brings them into some kind of friendly 
relation to the universe as_, in the present con- 
dition of knowiedge^ they conceive it. They 
must feel^ that is^ that human life and human 
purposes are not merely indifferently produced 
by the cosmic process^ and destined with equal 
indifference to disappear ; but that they contribute 
to and express something of its essence^ so that 
it has a significance which somehow is in harmony 
with our ideals. I express myself purposely in 
very vague and general terms ; but^ nevertheless, 
I have already said something definite enough to 
rule out of the content of faith at least two 
important positions : one, that of pessimism, or 
the belief that the universe on the w^hole is bad, 
as judged by our standards ; the other, that of 
indifferentism, that it has nothing to do with our 
valuations, except to produce them and to destroy 
them. Neither of these positions, I believe, in 
the present state of knowledge, can be either 
14 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

established or refuted. But the impulse of faith 
is^ I think^ not indeed to deny them — that would 
be to dogmatize — but to leave them on one side^ 
and to let the imagination play round a more 
positive and hopeful vision. How that vision 
may shape itself in detail I do not know; 
perhaps in many ways. But I am inclined to 
think it will tend rather to image the world 
dualistically, or pluralistically^ than under the 
form of unity. And for this reason^ that we seem 
to become increasingly conscious of Evil as a very 
real fact^ and intolerant of the many religions 
and philosophies which try to explain it away as 
^^mere appearance." The contest with Evil^ we 
feel^ is the essence of our moral life. But^ then^ 
on the other hand^ this contest^ our faith must 
suggest, is relevant to world-issues and somehow 
essential to the Whole. In fighting for Good 
we are assisting something Real that is divine ; 
in fighting against Evil we are resisting some- 
thing real that is diabolic. That is the kind 
of mythology which seems likely to appeal to 
men ; one which represents life as a fight, but a 
fight having cosmic significance, pointing to an 
end beyond but analogous to our best vision, an 
end which we are in process of discovering as we 
are in process of realizing it. Any hints at what 
15 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

this end may be we shall thankfully receive ; but 
we shall take them^ if we are wise^ as tentative 
and provisional^ even though they be the utter- 
ance of genius^ and shall guard ourselves against 
stereotyping prematurely the divine text. 

Further^ in this conflict^ men^ as I think and 
hope^ will dwell less and less upon their weak- 
ness^ and more and more upon their strength. 
So much has happened since first Christianity 
consecrated weakness and sin. We are no longer 
obsessed by the sense of supernatural beings 
among^ below and above us^ many or most of 
them malignant^ all of them willing and able to 
defeat our surest expectations^ and by sheer caprice 
of malice or favour interrupt, at any moment, by 
any kind of miracle, the normal course of things. 
We are no longer powerless in the face of Nature ; 
we have learnt, and are continually learning, how 
to adapt her processes to our ends. But to say 
this is to say that science has an immense religious 
significance. It has taught us that not power but 
order is the essence of the world ; that not caprice 
but reason is the attribute of the Divine ; and that 
we ourselves must and can work out our own salva- 
tion without expecting or desiring supernatural 
intervention. It follows that to respect ourselves 
is a religious as well as a moral duty ; or rather, to 
16 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

respect that in us which is fruitful, progressive, 
strong and wise. We have not, or ought not to 
have, any longer, time to consider whether we are 
^^ miserable sinners"; we ought to be too busy 
demonstrating in fact the contrary. The sense 
of original imperfection must indeed be always 
with us, for it is the obverse of the impulse to 
develop; but the sense of original sin should 
disappear, for it is an assertion of our essential 
worthlessness. 

But, then, on the other hand, there is a fact 
which we shall be too honest and sincere to blink. 
In this contest which we accept, towards this end 
which we divine, we are sacrificed by hundreds, 
thousands, millions. The evil against which we 
fight is always, on the face of it, conquering us. 
Many of us even do not know or guess against 
what or for what we are fighting. In any case, 
none of us enter into the promised land. This 
fact, it is true, for the mass of men at most 
moments does not present itself as a problem ; 
they accept the struggle without reflection, and 
often enough enjoy it. But as soon as an ideal 
end is consciously conceived the question comes 
up. Have individuals any relation to that end 
except to fight for it ? What would our faith of 
the future have to say on this point ? 
c 17 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

It must be admitted^ I think,, that many men^ 
and those perhaps the most strenuous and serious^ 
are either averse from considering this question 
at all^ or inclined to answer it^ offhand in the 
sceptical sense. And there are good reasons for 
their attitude. The strongest^ perhaps, is that 
it seems to them morally ignoble to make the 
desirability or obligation of taking part in the 
battle dependent upon the soldier's participation 
in the victory. They do not want that issue 
raised for fear it should weaken men. This is a 
position which deserves respect ; but it may be 
pointed out that it is one which has already 
assumed that the answer to the question must be 
discouraging; that individuals have, as a matter 
of obvious fact, no cosmic significance save as 
means to something or some one else. Now this 
is a dogma, and one that must be confronted with 
two questions. First, is it true ^ That question 
either cannot be answered at all ; in which case 
there is no room for a dogma, but at most for an 
attitude of faith. Or it can only be answered by 
science ; and in that case the only method to 
pursue is that which is being pursued, in the face 
of much discouragement from men of science, by 
the Society for Psychical Research. In fact, how- 
ever, it will be generally admitted that we do 
18 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

not as yet know anything on the subject^ and 
many people will add that we never shall know. 
If that be so^ the matter is one^ like everything 
connected with the unknown^ which may be a 
proper object of faith. And that brings us to 
our second question : In default of knowledge, 
how might a faith of the future properly and 
fruitfully regard the relation of the individual to 
death ? That is a question very hard to answer, 
for it seems clear that different men have very 
different feelings about it. There are some, like 
Comte for example, or Harriet Martineau, who 
feel life to be much more, not less, sublime and 
significant because they believe in the extinction 
of individuals at death. To this number, it would 
seem, George Meredith belongs. All interest, 
even, in the question he regards as a sign of weak- 
ness and egotism, and urges us again and again 
to identify ourselves with '^ Earth," and cease to 
look for any future save that of the race. On 
the other hand, there are men, like Frederic 
Myers, to whom the whole significance of the 
world depends upon personal immortality ; who 
find life full of worth if individual souls survive 
death, and quite without worth if they do not. 
Such men, in default of knowledge, will require 
and may legitimately have faith. And their 
C2 19 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

mythology, I think, will have as its essence the 
idea that the potentialities which men have not 
been able to realize here they w411 have a chance 
of realizing elsewhere and elsewhen. As to the 
nature in detail of that elsewhere and elsewhen 
they will, if they are wise, not be over-curious. 
The traditional conception of heaven and hell, 
with all that has come of it, is a warning against 
the attempt to convert faith into a dogma, and 
to develop the dogma in detail. All that men 
of this temperament really want is the scope 
of a horizon, and for that it is enough to imagine 
that what we know as life is not the beginning 
and end of all experience, and that our efforts 
have reverberations more remote and issues more 
sublime than can be apprehended by our direcu 
experience. Such an attitude, I think, is not 
really open to the objection often taken against 
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, that 
it withdraws interest from life and work here 
to dreams of another world. Properly taken, it 
would rather add significance and importance 
to every interest here, because by our conduct 
we should conceive ourselves to be making or 
marring not only our transitory welfare, nor 
that, equally transitory, of future individuals, but 
that of a life indefinitely extended both in 
20 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

duration and in range of experience. It might, 
indeed, be urged that only some such faith is 
likely to be able, in the long run, to stand the 
strain of life, and inspire men to achieve the best 
that is in them. But I do not press that point, 
in view of the diversities of human feeling. 
Some, no doubt, will continue to be inspired by 
Comte or by Meredith ; others by Browning or 
Myers ; or, let me rather say, by Goethe. For 
he, my safest and surest example of what I mean 
by Faith, while deprecating all undue preoccupa- 
tion with the idea of another life, and insisting 
on the duty of disinterested activity in this one, 
yet needed and professed a faith in the continu- 
ance of life after death. ^^ When a man is as 
old as I am," he said to Eckermann, ^^he is bound 
occasionally to think about death. In my case 
this thought leaves me in perfect peace, for I 
have a firm conviction that our spirit is a being 
indestructible by nature. It works on from 
eternity to eternity ; it is like the sun which only 
seems to set, but in truth never sets but shines 
on unceasingly." Elsewhere he elaborates a whole 
mythology on the subject. But Faith, as I have 
said, is best expressed in poetry. And I will 
rather quote, in conclusion, that lyric from the 
closing scene of Faust which sums up Goethe's 
21 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

whole moral and religious position as he built it 
up in an experience of eighty years. It is the 
chorus sung by the spirits who receive the soul 
of Faust after his long pilgrimage. 

^^Gerettet ist das edie Glied 

Der Geisterwelt vom Bosen : 
Wer inmer strebend sich bemiiht, 

Den konnen wir erlosen ; 
Und hat an ihm die Liebe gar 

Von oben Theil genomraen, 
Begegnet ihm die selige Schaar 

Mit herzlichem Willkommen." 

These^ then^ are the suggestions I venture to 
put forward as to what may be the content of a 
reasonable faith. They are few and meagre ; but 
it is more likely^ I think^ that I have said too 
much than too little. For^ if I am rights it is poets 
and musicians^ not philosophers and theologians^ 
who alone can give to such apprehensions an 
expression that is at once adequate and elastic. 
All I have wished to do is to indicate the channel 
within which the sacred stream may flow. That 
channel^ in my view, is determined by the limits 
of positive knowledge, and will be narrowed as 
they are enlarged. For faith, as I conceive it, is 
not an antagonist of knowledge ; it is at once 
its supplement and its inspiration. In a state in 
which there should be perfect knowledge and per- 
22 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

feet experienee^ there would be no room for faith ; 
so that in so far as faith v/orks for knowledge it 
may be said to work for its own destruction. It 
represents^ to my mind, our first excursions into 
the Unknown, an airy citadel rising there as a 
S3niibol of occupation. Without it I doubt whether 
knowledge has ever advanced or ever will advance. 
Would there, for example, have been chemistry if 
there had not been alchemy ? Or astronomy if 
there had not been astrology } Would there now be 
sociology if there were not a ^^ Faith " in progress } 
On the other hand, the history of religion shows 
that faith hardening into dogma becomes the 
enemy of knowledge. So, it may be observed, 
does the knowledge of to-day to the knowledge 
of to-morrow. But that is no reason for abandon- 
ing either faith or knowledge. It is a reason for 
trying the harder to pursue both in the right 
spirit. This paper I might call an essay towards 
the proper holding of faith. I claim no finality for 
it. I only hope to have put a position that may 
provoke some fruitful reflection and discussion. 



23 



II 

OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

Walking in the spring along the coasts of 
Cornwall and meditating the subject of this 
paper, on a green cliff overhanging the sea I came 
upon a flock of young lambs. Nothing can be 
imagined more beautiful ; nothing, as I thought 
more touching. The gay innocence of these young 
creatures, their movements of instinctive delight, 
their bleatinir, leaping, nuzzling, sucking, under 
the blue sky, testified to a confidence in the 
benevolence of the world into which they had 
been born, as characteristic of Nature as it is 
paradoxical to reason. For the universe they 
trusted so naively, what had it really prepared for 
them ? The butcher's knife or, at best, a slow 
transformation into mere sheep — stupid, unima- 
ginative, burdened with the weight of years and 
wool — such creatures as the ewes who watched 
with a grave, unintelligent disapproval the mad 
gambols of their disquieting offspring. 

The scene was typical ; and as I watched it 
24 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

I considered with astonishment the course of 
Nature — how in every kind^ from the lowest up to 
man^ generation after generation flings its children 
into the world ; how these take up existence 
without misgiving or fear ; and whatever disillu- 
sionment they may experience^ are never for an 
instant deterred from handing on the questionable 
gift of life to others_, who receive it as blindly and 
trustingly as they had done themselves. 

It is this attitude of unquestioning confidence 
in life that I wish to indicate by the word 
^^ optimism." In animals it appears to be instinc- 
tive ; and commonly it is so in men. For we^ too^ 
even those of us who profess to be philosophers^ 
are under the dominion of something that is not 
reason^ something which impels us by sheer force 
to affirm existence,, over-rides the intellect if it 
protests^ and urges us to live^ and to beget life^ 
even though we be convinced that to do so is 
immoral or absurd. Nay^ for the most part^ it 
would^ I believe^ be true to say that the reason 
itself^ even when it has thought itself most free, 
has been really a slave to this dominant instinct, 
and in constructing its systems has been content 
to assume without proof its main conclusion that 
the life we live is somehow worth the living. 

If that be so, it might seem superfluous to raise 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

the question I am propounding^ and inquire into 
the basis of an optimism which^ it may be said^ 
is part of our constitution. But we must not 
exaggerate the case. Men do^ it is true^ for the 
most part^ instinctively accept existence ; even in 
their reflection they do tend to assume at the 
dictation of Nature an axiom which it might be 
hard for reason to demonstrate ; even when they 
deny it^ they are very apt to act none the less as 
if it were true. But^ in spite of all this^ reason 
has its place. It demands that conduct shall har- 
monize with conviction ; it demands that convic- 
tion shall be rational ; and in spite of failure after 
failure^ it will never cease from the endeavour 
to make it so. And if those who listen to reason 
are few^ if the course of the world is mainly and 
palpably controlled by what are sometimes called 
the ^' life -promoting instincts/' yet there have 
been times in the history of mankind^ nay^ there 
have been whole eras^ in which these instincts 
themselves have drooped and flagged under the 
sense of disillusionment^ in which the question 
as to the worth of life has been nakedly and 
honestly asked^ and in which no answer, or a 
negative one, has been forthcoming. Nature, I 
think, cannot hope permanently to burke inquiry. 
Already four hundred millions adhere, at least 
26 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

nominally, to a creed whose ideal is the annihila- 
tion of the will to live. And if we are inclined 
to dismiss the Buddhist religion as a mere 
symptom of the decadence of the East, we may 
remember with profit the extraordinary, and to 
us, as I think, instructive crisis through which our 
own West passed at the beginning of the Christian 
era. At that time civilization had, as it seemed, 
exhausted its impulse. The stream of history, 
immense in its breadth, grew slacker and slacker 
in its flow. The huge machine moved with 
reluctant weariness. Habit, no longer passion, was 
the motive force, and it was a force that grew 
daily weaker. Not one man or two, here and 
there, but many men everywhere, were asking 
that fatal and terrible question — Why ? the 
question that, once it makes itself heard, shatters 
like a trump of doom the society that cannot give 
it an answer. Roman society had no answer ; and 
if the West was redeemed, it was only by an influx 
of barbarians whose brutal passion for life was 
unable even to understand the question asked by 
the great civilization they destroyed. The appeal 
to reason was checkmated by emotion ; and under 
the dominion of fear and desire grew up the 
Christian scheme which for centuries dominated 
the human mind. But Reason, in spite of all, 
27 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

will not^ I believe^ permit herself permanently 
to be silenced. Even now, are there not signs 
that she is beginning to assert herself? Under 
the surface of our astonishing activity in the 
twentieth century, are there not symptoms 
similar to those which accompanied the downfall 
of Rome — the decline of religion, the bank- 
ruptcy of philosophy, the inroads of pessimism, 
and the recrudescence of superstition ? The 
question I am asking may, I think, turn out to 
be one not merely of speculative but of practical 
importance ; it may embody a challenge of intellect 
to life too urgent to be diverted by sophistry, 
too vigorous to be shouted down by mobs. How- 
ever that may be, it is a question, I think, not 
unworthy the consideration of philosophers ; and 
perhaps I need make no further excuse for inviting 
the attention of my readers to it. I will proceed, 
therefore, without more ado, to state more pre- 
cisely what it is that I propose to discuss. 

In using the word ^^ optimism,'* what I have in 
view is not a reasoned conviction, but an attitude 
towards life ; the attitude which, as I think, is 
natural to men, and which is specially charac- 
teristic of the West, and among Westerns, more 
particularly the Anglo-Saxons. This attitude is 
unreflective, and is indicated not so much by 
28 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

expressed opinions as by high spirits and natural 
impulses. It is the attitude of ^^ going-ahead^*' 
of assuming that things are ^^ worth while," 
of ambition_, enthusiasm, enterprise, confidence, 
verve. It prompts to action ; not, however, 
merely from a sense of duty (though that may be 
present), but primarily from a delighted confidence 
that the action is going to lead somehow to results 
that are supremely good. Difficulty and hardship 
it takes in the spirit, not of the Stoic, but of the 
adventurer ; they, it feels, are not of the essence 
of things ; they are mere negative obstacles ; the 
real thing is benevolent, life-furthering, good. 
The earth is one which is adapted to our desires, 
and our desires may be trusted, both as to the 
nature of the object they seek, and as to its 
attainabihty by effort. A belief in all this, not 
necessarily formulated, but felt, is what I wish 
to indicate by the word ^^ optimism." And my 
question is — What hypotheses ought we logically 
to be able to accept if we are to justify optimism 
to our reason.'* I do not ask whether the 
hypotheses are true ; I ask merely what they are. 
And if this seems to be an inversion of the proper 
order of inquiry, I can only reply that it is the 
order which strikes me as natural ; and that I find 
it hard to take a serious interest in any philosophic 
29 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

inquiry until I have grasped the bearing of the 
inquiry upon Hfe. 

I ask^ then^ what general view of the universe 
ought^ if men were logical^ to underlie the 
optimism they express in their temperament and 
their conduct ? It must^ I think_, be one of two 
views. Either we must hold that the world is 
eternally perfect^ or we must hold that it is a 
process towards some attainable good end. The 
first hypothesis is the one I propose to examine 
first. It is one that has always been a favourite 
with philosophers^ and^ for that matter^ with poets. 

" I am the eye with which the Universe 
Beholds itself, and knows itself divine." 

So speaks Shelley's Apollo ; and so^ I suppose^ 
might speak the Substance of Spinoza_, or the 
Absolute of Hegel. The worlds as a whole^ being 
good^ all parts of it also are somehow good, and 
all activities^ and even all evils — 

*' All partial evil universal good," 

as Pope^ very accurately from his standpoint, 
remarks. We may therefore, it seems, on this 
hypothesis, trust without fear the instinct that 
bids us co-operate with Nature. Our optimism 
is a reflection of that of the Eternal Being, and is 
justified from His point of view, if not from ours. 
30 



a 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

This philosophy^ in its various forms^ is to many 
minds exceedingly alluring. Men do^ when they 
reflect^ most keenly desire a world that shall be 
eternally good^ and turn with longing to those 
who profess to give it them. But^ honestly^ can 
we think that such a world is the world of which 
we have experience ? 'Evil, surely^ is too patent 
and palpable ; persists too obstinately in the face 
of all assertions of eternal good. And^ what is 
more, by the existence of evil our whole activity 
is conditioned. We act always towards ends in 
time ; and these, however diverse, may be seen, 
I think, when we consider, to be all included 
under one. It is our object, somehow or other, 
in great things or small, by long reaches or short, 
for ourselves or for others, to destroy or diminish 
evil, and to create or increase good. If, then, it 
were really true, and we believed it to be true, 
that everything somehow is eternally good, we 
should, I think, for the most part feel that the 
root of our activity was cut away. This, I know, 
is a conclusion denied by those who maintain the 
position I am considering. For though they hold 
that evil is not real, they give it a place as 
Appearance ; and against this Appearance, they 
urge we may still contend. But can we ? And 
even ought we to.^ For the existence of this 
31 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

Appearance must somehow be essential to the 
eternal perfection. If it be not^ there is some- 
thing in perfection which is not perfect ; if it be, 
to destroy it would be to destroy the perfection. 
So thatj on this view^ it would seem, not only 
must the attempt to get rid of evil be vain, it 
must even be impious ; for its only result, if it 
could be successful, would be to diminish good. 
^^ Ah, but," I shall be told, ^^ although it be true 
that the way in which we conceive of our activity 
is absurd, yet the activity in itself is right. For 
really it is the Absolute that is acting in us ; and 
our notion that we are achieving an end is merely 
his device to keep us in play." We then, it 
would seem, are dupes of the Eternal Being. 
And this may be all very well so long as the 
dupery is successful. But what when our 
philosophy has exposed it } Shall we continue to 
acquiesce ? Not, I think, willingly, and with our 
reason, though no doubt we may be compelled by 
the force of instinct. ^^But," it will be urged, 
^^ this Eternal Being is good ; we are bound there- 
fore to approve its activity ; and therefore our 
own, which is a part of its." To this I can only 
reply that for my own part I do not see in what 
intelligible sense a Being can be good of whose 
existence evil, whether it be called apparent or 
32 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

real^ is an essential constituent. The Substance^ 
or the Absolute,, for aught I can see^ might just 
as well be called the Devil as God ; and a belief 
in It seems to me necessarily to preclude any 
justification of our activity in time. The doc- 
trine that evil is appearance and ends illusory 
must^ I believe^ or at least ought to lead to 
pessimism. Or does any one really hold that if 
you could convince an ordinary man that the evil 
he eschews^ and (I suppose) equally the good he 
pursues, is only apparent, and that the point of 
his activity is not, as he supposes, the attainment 
of certain temporal ends, but the maintenance 
of the eternal life of a Being to whom the appear- 
ance of the Evil which he believes himself to be 
diminishing is as essential as that of the Good he 
believes himself to be increasing — does any one 
hold that such a doctrine could seem to him 
comforting or inspiring ? that he would be inclined 
to worship such a Being as God ? and be satisfied 
to transfer his allegiance from the temporal issues 
he has found so dear, to the eternal Fact which 
renders those issues absurd ? For my own part, 
I do not beHeve either that he would, or that 
he ought to. On the contrary, I believe that he 
would experience a sense of weary disillusion- 
ment ; that the suggested optimism would turn 
D 33 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

into its opposite ; and that the Absolute, if it 
wished to keep the world going in the old style^ 
would have to invent some new trick less patent 
to philosophy. That, at least, is how the matter 
presents itself to me ; and though I do not 
suppose I have convinced any one who was not 
convinced before, I should probably advance no 
further by labouring the point. 

I turn, then, from the hypothesis that the 
world is eternally good, to the more natural one 
that it is a mixture of Evil and Good, both of 
which are real. This \dew has at least the ad- 
vantage that it gives us a real antagonist ; the 
end we propose — the diminution of Evil and the 
increase of Good — is not stultified by our primary 
assumption ; and we may pass on to the question 
— What further assumptions are necessary if our 
intuitive optimism is to be justified f 

And first, is it necessary to take any account of 
the result of our activity } Or is it enough to 
believe that there is a real conflict, the conflict 
being a sufficient end in itself.^ Some people, I 
think, especially among Anglo-Saxons, would be 
inclined, if they cared to entertain this latter 
question at all, to answer it in the affirmative. 
Those in whom the fighting instinct is strong love 
battle for its own sake ; and if they persuade 
34 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

themselves they are fighting for the Good^ they 
have, they feel, all that they need, w^ithout 
raising the question of the result. The question 
whether or how far Good is attainable — as well 
as the even more important one as to what things 
really are good — are apt to appear to them 
disturbing and vexatious ; they are afraid that 
their efforts might be paralyzed by such considera- 
tions ; and perhaps they are right. Nevertheless, 
whatever they might or might not admit, there 
must, I think, underlie their efforts, if their 
attitude is really optimistic, some assumption 
about the result of their work. They must 
beheve, surely, in the first place, at least so much, 
that their efforts towards Good will tend, so far 
as they go, to produce Good, and not Evil. The 
contrary assumption clearly must lead straight to 
pessimism. Similarly, I think, they must believe 
that Good, not Evil, is, or at least may be, in- 
creasing in the long run. It would, of course, 
be possible, and it might even be noble, to fight 
on with the consciousness of a losing battle ; and 
to do so in any particular case would be quite 
compatible with a general optimism about the 
world as a whole. But a belief that in the world, 
as a whole. Evil was triumphing — a belief in 
^^ conquering 111 and conquered Good" — must, 
D 2 35 



RELIGION AXD IMMORTALITY 

I think, take the heart out of the fight even 
of the most robust ; and though they might 
still continue to contend^ and might have our 
applause in doing so_, their attitude would no 
longer be the optimist's we are considering. 
Nay. in the long run^ I cannot but think, if 
such a con^-iction became general, even the 
Anglo-Saxon race would cease to contend out of 
sheer despair ; and the West, like the East, would 
turn from the pursuit of Hfe, to the annihilation 
of the will to live. For take the most active, 
strenuous and unreflecting man at the season of 
failure or at the point of death ; take him when 
he is comparatively un-preoccupied with the fun 
of the fight, with adapting means to ends, and 
planning or realizing schemes ; ask him to con- 
sider not merely himself but all with whom he 
has come into contact, and especially those whose 
dearest aims he has defeated ; ask him to review 
not merely his own age but all the course of 
history, back and forrvard, and to supjx)se that in 
all time past and in all time to come there never 
has been and there never ^vill be any diminution 
of E\'il or any increase of Good : nay, that the 
contrarj' has been the case ; and that the only 
result of his own efforts, as of all others, has been 
to delay the inevitable and complete triumph 
36 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORT.ALITY 

of Bad — make hixQ feel and understand such a 
supposition^ and he will^ I think^ at once indig- 
nantly repudiate it as intolerable ; or^ if he could 
be persuaded to accept it^ would miserably feel 
that the ground had been cut away beneath his 
feet^ and that there remained no justification for 
his own or for any possible hfe. Out of habit 
and obstinacy he might continue to labour_, but 
he would labour in the spmt of a pessimist, not in 
that of Mr. Kipling and Mr. Rhodes. He would 
not be a true Anglo-Saxon ; he would be some- 
thing very like what we love to conceive of the 
^^ decadent" East. 

And not dissimilar^ I think, would be the 
attitude of one who^ while belie^Tng in the attain- 
abiUty of this or that particular Good, should be 
agnostic on the question of any ultimate triumph 
of Good on the whole. I am aware, of course, 
that most men pursue particular Goods without 
any conscious or habitual reference beyond them. 
But it is one thing not to have reflected on the 
possibihty of an ultimate or general Good ; another, 
definitely to be sceptical about it. Such definite 
doubt, I think, must naturally lead to something 
more like pessimism than optimism. It need not 
check activity, though I think it would tend in 
that direction ; but it would strike at the root of 
37 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

joy and faith. The position may be illustrated 
by the case of Huxley^ a man^ as I think^ of 
singularly clear and noble ethical insight. He^ 
if I understand him rightly,, held that there 
is no reason to suppose that the Universe is con- 
structed on the lines of Good^ or that Good will 
ever^ in any ultimate way^ prevail over Bad. But^ 
on the other hand^ he held it to be proved by 
experience that it is possible, over a certain 
limited period of time, to increase Good and 
diminish Evil ; and that this is a sufficient basis 
for action. So it is ; but not for optimistic action. 
The attitude prompted by such a position is rather 
one of grim determination, devoid of enthusiasm, 
of delight, of confidence, of all that makes the 
morning of the world, and the song of the poet or 
the bird. 

Contrast with this view — which I consider to be 
as noble as it is depressing— that of the men who 
in the eighteenth century formulated that doctrine 
of progress which is the real inspiration of our 
own time. As they saw it, the whole process of 
the world, from the beginning, was one triumphant 
march to the goal of Good. To that end nature 
and man, conscious and unconscious efforts, 
passion, instinct, reason, all conspired. Blindly, 
for countless centuries, there had worked at the 
38 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

heart of things that which in these last generations 
had become conscious of itself — the reason of the 
whole universe seeking with joy its own perfec- 
tion. This^ surely^ is the truly optimistic view ; 
the intellectual position required by the Western 
world to justify its instinctive pursuit of life ; and 
it is the position adopted without reflection by 
the philosophers of the nineteenth century^ from 
Kant and Hegel to many of our own contem- 
poraries. 

Yet this doctrine of progress^ in the form in 
which it was originally announced^ is already, I 
think, ceasing to hold the field. For this there 
are various reasons. Partly, I suppose, we see how 
little support it finds in known facts ; how short 
is the period and how small the area over which 
even what we call progress has prevailed; inso- 
much that we can hardly deny the dictum of Sir 
Henry Maine that progress, so far as our positive 
knowledge goes, must be regarded rather as an 
exception than as the rule. Partly, we see how 
doubtful is even such progress as we think we 
can recognize ; how gains are counterbalanced by 
losses ; and how hard it is to sum up the total 
result. If, for instance, we have gained in scien- 
tific knowledge and practical capacity, have we 
not lost in imagination, in nobility and spiritual 
3^ 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

force ? Such considerations undoubtedly have 
damped our beHef in progress. They aiFect^ how- 
even rather the fact than the conception, and it 
is with the latter that we are at present con- 
cerned. Is the conception of progress, in the 
form in which it has become popularized, suffici- 
ent to bear the weight of Western optimism } I 
doubt it ; and for this reason. Progress has been 
commonly conceived as progi'ess not of the in- 
dividual but of the race. The individual has been 
thrust into the backgi'ound, under the influence 
of biology ; and the world-process has come to 
be regarded as a movement towards the perfec- 
tion not of x\ll, but of some remote generation. 
The progTess of humanity has extruded that of 
the indi^ddual, who has thus been reduced to a 
mere means towards an end in which he has no 
participation. 

Such a conception, regarded as an ideal, has, I 
think, palpable defects. Humanity is made up 
of individuals ; and what people call the progress 
of humanity implies, that of those individuals an 
indefinite number, who have the misfortune to be 
bom earlier in time, come into existence, suffer, 
contend, aspire, stiniggle, acquiesce, experience, at 
the best, partial good, at the w^orst, unmitigated 
evil, and finally are extinguished, ignorant, blind, 
40 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

confused^ as they were born^ with no result for it 
all save that they have formed the stepping-stones 
for others who are to enjoy^ for a brief time^ the 
full illumination of Good at some date indefinitely 
remote. 

So stated — and I have stated it^ I think^ not 
unfairly — the position ceases to be a possible basis 
for optimism. It may indeed justify activity 
directed towards a positive end — though even that 
may be doubted,, since it mighty not unreasonably^ 
be held to be better to aim rather at extinguishing 
existence than at perpetuating it on such miserable 
terms. But it can hardly justify the confidence 
and enthusiasm which is an essential characteristic 
of optimism. Unless^ indeed^ it be seriously main- 
tained that for most people life on earth as we 
know it is so transcendently good that it deserves 
in itself^ without reference to anything beyond^ to 
be supported and perpetuated with delight. That 
is a view^ I suppose^ which may be held by some 
few fortunate and unimaginative souls ; but I 
cannot believe it would commend itself to an 
enlightened understanding. Too few of us^ surely^ 
attain the Good even of which we are capable ; too 
many are capable of too little ; and all are capable 
for so short a time. A Good so precarious^ so 
capriciously distributed^ in the course of a life so 
41 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

brief, has seldom^ I think^ seemed to men^ when 
they have come to reflect^ to be a Good very much 
worth the pursuit. On this point the experience 
of the East is instructive. Nothing is more 
striking than the transformation of those early 
Aryan warriors_, who came down from the North 
Uke Greeks^ active^ aggressive,, enthusiastic, into 
the race of mild Hindus, penetrated with the 
sense of nothingness, desiring only to be re- 
absorbed into the Universal whence they sprang, 
and enduring the while, with quiet contempt, the 
fatuous energies of men who still think it worth 
while to trade, to govern and to fight. We may 
attribute the change, if we will, to climate, in- 
stitutions, and the like. But there is something 
behind all that — the permanent challenge of the 
reason to the instinct that affirms life — a challenge 
which the Indian met, and before which he 
succumbed — a challenge we too must meet, as it 
was met by Greeks and Romans, and to which we 
too must succumb, unless we have some better 
reply than that old saying, not of a Hindu, but of 
a Greek, — 

TTOLvra yeXo)? koL iravTa kovis kcli iravra to fxrjSiv 
TTOLVTa yap ef dXoycov icrrt ra ytvo/xeva. 

Western optimism, in my judgment, is doomed, un- 
less we can believe that there is more significance 
42 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

in individual lives than appears upon the surface ; 
that there is a destiny reserved for them more 
august than any to which they can attain in their 
life of threescore years and ten. On this point I 
can^ of course^ only speak my own conviction — the 
conviction that^ at the bottom of every human 
soul^ even of those that deny it^ there lurks the 
insatiate hunger for eternity ; that we desire^ in 
Browning's phrase, something that will 

' ' make time break 
And let us pent-up creatures through 
Into eternity, our due ; " 

and that nothing short of this will ever appear, in 
the long run, once men have begun to think and 
feel, to be a sufficient justification and apology for 
the life into which we are born. 

I conceive, then, that a doctrine of progress 
which is to be a basis for optimism must comprise 
at least the possibility of a Good to be attained by 
individual souls after death. And this brings me 
to the point of view which, up to quite recent 
times, has been, in the West, the support on 
which men have relied, and the weakening of 
which is coincident with the inroads of pessimism 
— I mean the point of view of the Christian 
Church. The doctrine of the Church is, I think, 
in some of its aspects, the noblest and most satis- 
43 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

factory which men have ever devised for their 
comfort in their bhnd_, enigmatic pilgrimage. 
This life^ it recognizes^ is not all ; beyond it lies 
etemity_, an eternity either of Good or Evil ; and 
which of these is to be the lot of the individual soul 
depends upon its conduct while on earth. It is free 
to choose either Good or Evil ; and as it chooses^ 
so will be its reward. I have called this doctrine 
noble^ firsts because of its recognition that the 
goal of ultimate satisfaction is eternal life in 
the contemplation of Good ; secondly^ because of 
its implicit assertion of the infinite distinction 
between Good and Evil. 

But if the doctrine has its noble aspect^ it has 
others which are irrational^ and even immoral. It 
depends^, in the first place^ in any sense in which 
we can accept it as satisfactory^ upon the belief in 
free will. I am aware^ of course^ that it has been^ 
and perhaps still is_, held by many who do not 
accept that belief But I cannot think that a 
doctrine will^ in the long run^ commend itself to 
the conscience of mankind^ still less support an 
optimistic view of the worlds which sends men to 
an eternal hell^ not for any fault of their own^ but 
because they have been once for all created bad. 
Now_, in our time a large and increasing number 
of people are determinists. if not fatalists ; and a 
conjunction of that mode of thought with a belief 
44 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

in the Christian theology must^ I think_, inevitably 
lead directly to pessimism^ as men become, if they 
do, more intelligent and more humane. 

Leaving, however, this point — which might 
easily land me in a controversy in which I have 
no desire to be involved — there are few of us who, 
even if we accept the doctrine of free will, can 
believe in the righteousness of hell. This, I am 
aware, may be attributed to mere weakness. If, 
it may be said, we can deserve an eternal heaven, 
then surely we can also deserve an eternal hell ; 
and with our modern squeamishness may be con- 
trasted the splendid audacity of Dante, himself 
the tenderest as well as the sternest of men — 

** Giustizia mosse 11 mio alto fattore ; 
Fecemi la divina potestate, 
La somma sapienza e il primo amore." 

It must be remembered, however, that I am 
discussing the postulates of optimism ; and with 
optimism I conceive the doctrine of hell to be 
incompatible ; first, because, even on the vindictive 
theory, an eternal punishment is indefinitely ex- 
cessive for a temporal offence ; secondly, because, 
rightly or wrongly, we have come to demand that 
any heaven which we can hold to be good, must 
somehow or other be a heaven for all. 

Such a demand may, of course, be represented 
45 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

as weak and sentimental ; may be charged with 
ignoring the distinction between the good and the 
bad. I would suggest^ however^ that the distinc- 
tion between what we call good and bad people 
is neither so clear nor so fundamental as that 
between Good and Evil themselves. The best 
man is not so very good nor the worst so very bad_, 
especially if w^e take into account all the circum- 
stances and influences w^hich may have helped the 
one and hindered the other. Is any man so bad 
as to deserve eternal hell ; or^ for that matter^ so 
good as to deserve eternal heaven ? Few^ I think^ 
would answer in the affirmative. And if we are 
to hold^ as we must^ I believe^ if we are to be 
optimists,, that there is some definite goal to be 
reached by all individuals in a temporal process^ 
then the notion of a series of successive existences^ 
in the course of which all are gradually purified 
and made fit for the heaven they are ultimately 
to attain^ would seem to be the one least open to 
objection. It is also^ I think^ the one which is 
gradually popularizing itself among those who^ 
without being students of philosophy^ feel an 
intimate interest in its problems^ and are not 
satisfied with the Christian solution. 

To sum up^ then^ my conclusions. The postu- 
lates of optimism^ or some of them, at least, I 
conceive to be — 

46 



OPTIMISM AND IMMORTALITY 

(1) That the world is not eternally good^ but 

embodies a real (not merely an apparent) 
process in time towards a good end. 

(2) That this end is one in which all individuals 

will somehow participate. 

(3) That therefore individual souls must be im- 

mortal^ and must all of them ultimately 
reach heaven. 

Now these postulates^ whether or no they may 
seem credible,, are at any rate directly opposed 
to the modes of thought that have been or are 
officially accepted in Christendom. They are 
opposed to Christianity-, for they deny hell.^ 
They are opposed to the various philosophies of 
the Absolute^ for they assert a real temporal 
process. They are opposed to current scientific 
preconceptions^ for they assert a progress which 
is not of the species but of individuals. On 
the other hand^ among the uneducated and 
the superstitious^ and among those who are not 
associated by training or environment with any 
particular school of thought^ they are^ I think^ 
beginning to commend themselves as satisfactory^ 
if not as true. They are at the bottom^ for 

^ I am aware, of course, that many modern people 
calling themselves Christians do not accept the doctrine of 
Hell ; but it has been an essential doctrine of Christian 
theology at least from the time of Augustine. 

47 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

instance^ of the interest felt in what is called 
theosophv ; they are at the bottom of spirituaHsm ; 
they are at the bottom of Browning Societies ; 
they are at the bottom of the Society for Psychical 
Research. If I am right in my notion that they 
appeal to the ''•' life-affiraiing " instinct in man^ 
and that nothing else^. when we think the matter 
out^ does so^ then I think they have a future,, if not 
m philosoj^hy or science^, then in religion or super- 
stition. It is important then^ it seems to me^ that 
they should be considered by both science and 
philosophy^ if it is desu'able that those who make 
it their business to think should have some voice 
in the formation of popular beliefs. Thus^ for 
example^ philosophy should devote a most serious 
consideration to that concept of the Absolute and 
the Eternal^ which it has accepted^. I cannot but 
think^ so uncritically ; and to the notion of a sub- 
stantial person or soul^ which is still involved in so 
much obscurity. And science^ on the other hand^ 
should lay aside its prejudices^ and be ready to 
consider with an open mind all e\idence^ however 
tainted in its source^, which may seem to bear on 
the question of sunival after death. For these^ I 
cannot but think^ are the problems with which^ 
more and more^ men will begin to concern them- 
selves when the present wave of unreflecting 
materialism has spent its force. 
48 



Ill 

IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

BEING THE INGERSOLL LECTURE DELIVERED AT 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY IN 1909 

It is with a certain sense of temerity that I 
stand before you to-night^ a sense inspired not 
only by the place and the audience^ but by the 
subject on which I am to speak. 

I am succeeding in a famous university many 
distinguished men ; and for that my only apology 
is the invitation with which I was honoured But 
also, I am to speak on the Immortality ^ of Man ; 
and in defence of that audacity what can I say ? 
Surely, it may be thought, a man must be very 
bold or very shameless who is prepared to discourse 
on such a theme. For either, it would seem, he 
must profess to know what the wisest have ad- 
mitted to be beyond their ken ; or he must be a 
charlatan, ready to talk about matters of which he 

^ I have used the word Immortality, throughout this 
lecture, to cover any prolongation of the life of the indi- 
vidual beyond death. The survival of death is not, of 
course, identical with, and does not impl}^ immortality, in 
the proper sense of the term. But if it were known that 
survival of death were a fact, the principal argument against 
immortality would disappear. For our only reason for sup- 
posing that we do not live for ever is our experience of death 

E 49 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

knows nothing. These are hard alternatives ; but 

they do not, I hope, exhaust the possibiUties. If 

I venture to address you on this great subject, it 

is precisely because I do not suppose you regard 

me as a preacher or a prophet. I am here, as I 

conceive, to make one speech in a debate v^^hich 

proceeds from century to century, which has been 

perpetually adjourned and never concluded. For 

the Immortality of Man is one of those great open 

questions which to my mind are, of all, the most 

worth discussing, even though they may never be 

resolved. 

But, in saying that, I have already, no doubt, 

said what some of you will dispute ; for to some 

of you, in all probability, the question is not open, 

but closed. There may be those here who are 

convinced on grounds of revealed religion that 

Man is immortal. To these I do not speak, for 

anything I could say must be an irrelevance or an 

impertinence. There may be others who are 

equally assured, on grounds of science, that man 

is mortal. Against them I shall not argue at 

length to-day ; but I must state briefly that I do 

not agree with them, and why.^ 

^ The dogmatic and, as I think, unscientific attitude of 
some men of science is illustrated by Prof. Mtinsterberg's 
little book, The Eternal Life. He says (p. 6), '* Necessity 
moves the stars in the sky, and necessity moves the 
emotions in my mind. No miracle can break these laws, 
can push a single molecule from its path, or create a sen- 

50 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

The scientific denial of immortality is based upon 
the admitted fact of the connection between mind 
and brain ; whence it is assumed that the death of 
the brain must involve the death of that^ whatever 
it be^ which has been called the soul. This may 
indeed be true ; but it is not necessarily or obviously 
true ; it does not follow logically from the fact 
of the connection. For^ as William James has 
ably set forth in his lecture on ^^ Human Immor- 
tality^" that fact may imply not the production^ 
but the transmission of mind by brain. The soul_, 

sation in a mind, when the body does not work, when the 
brain no longer functions." I have dealt in the text with 
the point of the connection between mind and brain. But 
I have not there dealt with the point of heredity. There 
is evidence that mental as well as physical qualities are 
transmitted hereditarily. And if it could be demonstrated 
that the mental qualities of a person may be completely 
accounted for in that way, the hypothesis of a mental 
entity pre-existing independently of the body would be- 
come extremely improbable. On the other hand, (l)such 
complete demonstration does not exist. Heredity is a 
hypothesis which seems to account plausibly for some of 
the facts, but the limits of its applicability have yet to be 
determined. And (2) to rule out pre-existence would not 
be necessarily to rule out post-existence, though I think it 
would make it less probable. The point I wish to make is, 
that in the present state of our knowledge (or ignorance) 
on these subjects the hypotheses which science finds it con- 
venient to use and test ought not to be set up to discredit 
any specific and independently verified facts which make 
prima facie against those hypotheses. And I regard the 
question of the survival of death, at present, as an open 
one, (1) because there are certain facts which seem possibly 
to point to survival, (2) because there is not, and probably 
cannot be, a demonstration of the contrary. The question 
of heredity in its bearing on pre-existence is discussed by 
Dr. McTaggart in Some Dogmas of Religion ^ p. 124 seq. 

E2 51 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

as Plato thought^ may be capable of existing with- 
out the body, though it be imprisoned in it as in a 
tomb. It looks out, we might suppose, through the 
windows of the senses ; and its vision is obscured 
or distorted by every imperfection of the glass. 
^^ If a man is shut up in a house/' Dr. McTaggart 
has remarked, ^^ the transparency of the windows 
is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. 
But," he wittily adds, ^^ it would not be prudent to 
infer that if he walked out of the house he could 
not see the sky, because there was no longer any 
glass through which he might see it." ^ My point 
is, that the only fact we have is the connection, in 
our present experience, of body and mind. That 
the soul therefore dies with the brain is an infer- 
ence, and quite possibly a mistaken one. If to 
some minds it seems ine^itable, that may be as 
much due to a defect of their imagination as to a 
superiority of their judgment. To infer wisely in 
such matters, one must be a poet as well as a man 
of science ; and for my own part I would rather 
trust the intuitions of Goethe ^ or of Browning than 

^ McTaggart, Some Dogmas of Religion^ p. 105 seq. 

2 The principal sayings of Goethe upon the subject of a 
life after death have been collected by Dr. Wilhelm Bode 
in a little book entitled Meine Religion — Mein 2>oHtischer 
Glauhe, von J. B. v. Goethe. I translate here a few of the 
passages : — 

** When a man is as old as I am, he is bound sometimes 
to think about death. This thought leaves me in perfect 
peace, for I have a firm conviction that our spirit is a being 

52 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

the ratiocination of Spencer or of Haeckel. For 
in making his hypotheses a man is determined^ 

of indestructible nature ; it works on from eternity to 
eternity ; it is like the sun which, though it seems to set 
to our earthly eyes, does not really set but shines on per- 
petually. Do you think a cofl&n can impose upon me ? 

**No good man allows himself to be robbed of his 
belief in immortality. The continuance of personal life 
does not conflict at all with the observations I have been 
making for so many years past on the nature of Man and 
of all living creatures. On the contrary, it derives from 
them fresh confirmation." 

** The conviction that our life continues springs for me 
from the conception of activity ; for, if I work, without 
ceasing, to the end, Nature is bound to assign me another 
form of existence, when the present one no longer suffices 
for my spirit. " 

Perhaps I ought in candour, considering the subject and 
content of this lecture, to quote also the following : — 

* ' I could not bear to renounce the happiness of believing 
in a future life ; indeed, I could say, with Lorenzo di 
Medici, that they are dead even for this life who hope for 
no other ; but such unintelligible matters lie too far away 
to be an object of daily reflection and confusing speculation. 
And further, if a man believes in survival, let him be happy 
in silence ; he has no occasion to make a fuss about it. I 
observed, in connection with Tiedge's Urania, that saints, 
like nobles, are a kind of aristocracy. I found silly women 
who gave themselves airs because, with Tiedge, they 
believed in immortality ; and I had to undergo a very 
obscure cross-examination on the subject. However, I 
annoyed them by saying : * I have no objection to being 
blessed with another life after this one is over ; only I do 
hope I shan't meet there any one who believed in it here. 
Otherwise I shall have a most unpleasant time. The 
saints will all flock round me and say : ** Well, weren't 
we right ? Didn't we tell you so ? Isn't it just as we 
said ? " And so one would be bored even in heaven ! ' " 

" A preoccupation with ideas of immortality is for the 
leisured classes, and for women who have nothing to do. 
A sensible man, who wants to be something decent here, 
and so has to struggle, fight, and work, leaves the future 
life in peace and is active and useful in this one. Besides, 

53 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

whether he knows it or no^ by his habitual sense of 
what is possible ; and in this curious universe so 
many things are possible which seem incredible to 
men who have never been astonished ! Does it 
seem to you incredible that the body should be the 
habitation,, not the creator^ of the soul ; that this 
should continue to live when that has died ? I can 
only reply in the words of your own poet : — 

** Is it wonderful that I should be immortal as every one is 

immortal ? 
I know it is wonderful — but my eyesight is equally 

wonderful, and how I was conceived in my 

mother's womb is equally wonderful ; 
And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a 

couple of summers and winters, to articulate 

and walk. All this is equally wonderful. 
And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect 

each other, without ever seeing each other and 

never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as 

wonderful. 
And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as 

wonderful. 
And that I can remind you, and you can think them and 

know them to be true, is just as wonderful. 
And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the 

earth, is equally wonderful ; 
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars 

is equally wonderful. " 

I do not of course suggest that from the 
intuition of poets anything can be finally con- 
thoughts about immortality are for people who haven't 
come off very well in the way of happiness here ; and 
I imagine that if the good Tiedge had had better fortune 
he would have had better thoughts." 

54 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

eluded about the Immortality of Man. But I 
urge that when we approach the subject it should 
be with our imagination alert; that our hypo- 
theses should be framed under a compelling sense 
of our own limitations and the vastness of the 
universe ; and that^ if we approach the matter 
thus^ the notion that something we may call a 
soul or self survives death will not seem to be 
ruled out by any of the known facts of our 
experience. 

Thus much I have said merely to clear the 
ground for the point I propose to discuss. Con- 
sidering it to be an open question whether or no 
immortality is a fact,, I shall devote the rest of my 
time to the inquiry whether and in what sense 
it is desirable. In this inquiry I hope you will 
consider that I am addressing to you a series of 
questions ; and though I shall not conceal my 
own opinions^ it is not my object to impose them 
upon you. I have to deal with a number of 
different and mutually incompatible attitudes 
resulting from different experiences and temper- 
aments. These I shall pass in review^ distinguish^ 
and criticize ; and each of you^ I assume^ mean- 
time will be considering within yourselves what 
your own position is towards each of them. 

The attitudes in question may be broadly dis- 
tinguished as three. There are those who do not 
55 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

think about immortality^ those who fear it^ and 
those who desire it. 

1. The majority of people I should suppose 
belong to the first class^ except perhaps in certain 
crises of life. The normal attitude of men towards 
death seems to be one of inattention or evasion. 
They do not trouble about it ; they do not want 
to trouble about it ; and they resent it being called 
to their notice. And this^ I believe^ is as true of 
those who nominally accept Christianity as of those 
who reject any form of religion. On this point 
Frederic Myers used to tell a story which I 
have always thought very illuminating. In con- 
versation after dinner he was pressing on his host 
the unwelcome question^ what he thought would 
happen after death. After many evasions and 
much recalcitrancy the reluctant admission was 
extorted : ^^ Of course, if you press me^ I believe 
that we shall all enter into eternal bliss ; but I 
wish you wouldn't talk about such disagreeable 
subjects." This^ I believe^ is typical of the 
normal mood of most men. They don't want to 
be worried ; and though probably^ if the question 
were pressed^ they would object to the idea of 
extinction^ they can hardly be said to desire 
immortality. Even at the point of deaths it 
would seem^ this attitude is often maintained. 
Thus Prof. Osier writes : — 

56 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

'^ I have careful records of about five hundred 
death-beds^ studied particularly with reference 
to the modes of death and the sensations of the 
dying. The latter alone concern us here. Ninety 
suffered bodily pain or distress of one sort or 
another, eleven showed mental apprehension, two 
positive terror, one expressed spiritual exaltation, 
one bitter remorse. The great majority gave no 
signs one way or the other ; like their birth, their 
death was a sleep and a forgetting." ^ 

2. It cannot, then, I think, be said that most 
men desire immortality ; rather they are, in their 
normal mood, and even at the point of death, 
indifferent to the question. But most men, 
perhaps, in some moods, and some men continu- 
ally, do reflect upon the subject and have 
conscious and definite desires about it. Of these, 
however, not all desire immortality ; and some 
are so far from desiring it that they passionately 
crave for extinction, and would receive the news 
that they survive death not with exultation, but 
with despair. The two positions are to be dis- 
tinguished. On the one hand, a man may simply 
have had enough of life without having any 
quarrel with it, and may prefer to the idea of 
continued existence that of oblivion and repose. 
Such, according to Metchnikoff,^ would be the 

^ Science and Immortality y p. 36. 
2 See his book, The Nature of Man. 

57 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

normal attitude of men if they were not habit- 
ually cut off before the natural term of life^ a 
term which he puts at well over a hundred years. 
And such seems,, in fact^ to be the attitude of 
some men even under present conditions. It is 
beautifully and classically expressed in the well- 
known epitaph written by the poet Landor for 
himself : — 

*' I strove with none, for none was worth my strife ; 
Nature I loved and next to nature art ; 
I warmed both hands before the fire of life ; 
It sinks, and I am ready to depart." 

On the other hand^ there are those who not 
merely acquiesce in but desire extinction ; and 
that^ because they believe^ on philosophic or other 
grounds^ that any possible life must be bad. 
These are the people called pessimists ; they are 
more numerous than is often believed ; and they 
are apt to be regarded by the plain man with a 
certain moral reprobation. That this should be 
so is an interesting testimony to the instinctive 
optimism of mankind. But the optimism^ it will 
perhaps be agreed^ is commonly less profound 
than the pessimism. Whatever may be the 
promise of life^ it is^ as we know it^ to those who 
look at it fairly and straight^ very terrible^ unjust^ 
and cruel. And if any conceivable subsequent 
life must be of the same character as this^ no 
58 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

freer from limitation, no richer in hope, no fuller 
in achievement, then the pessimist has at any 
rate a strong prima facie case. And this brings 
us to the obvious point that the desirability of a 
future life must depend upon its character, just 
as does the desirability of this one. So that it is 
relevant to ask those who acquiesce in or desire 
extinction v^^hether or no there is some kind of 
life which, if offered to them securely, they would 
be willing to accept after death. 

3. Let us turn, then, to our third class, those 
who desire immortality, and ask them what it 
is they desire and whether it is really desirable. 
For a number of very different conceptions may 
be covered by the same phrase. And, first, there 
are those who simply do not want to die, and 
whose desire for immortality is merely the ex- 
pression of this feeling. Old people, so far as I 
have observed, often cling in this way to life, 
more often, indeed, than the young. Yet if they 
could put it fairly to themselves, they would, I 
suppose, hardly say that they would wish to go on 
for ever in this life, with all their infirmities in- 
creasing upon them. Nothing surely is sadder, 
nothing meaner, than this desire to prolong life 
here at all costs. The sick, the infirm, the aged, 
that we care for them as we do may be creditable 
to our humanity. But that they desire to be 
59 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

cared for, instead of to depart, is that so creditable 
to theirs ? I mil go further, and say that to arrest 
any period of life, even the best, the most glorious 
youth, the most triumphant manhood, is what no 
reasonable man will rightly desire. To the values 
of life, at any rate as we know it now, the change 
we call growing older seems to be essential ; and 
we cannot wisely wish to arrest that process 
anywhere this side of death. I shall suppose 
that you agree with that and pass to another 
conception. 

It may be held that life, as we know it, is so 
desirable that though it would not be a good 
thing to prolong it indefinitely, it would be a 
good thing to repeat it over and over again. That 
we may treat this notion fairly, I will ask you to 
suppose that in none of these repetitions is there 
any memory of the previous cycles ; for every 
one, I expect, would agree that the repetition of a 
life, every episode of which is remembered to have 
occurred before, is a prospect of appalling tedious- 
ness. Supposing, however, that memory were 
extinguished at each death, we have a position 
that may be worth examining. It is, as many of 
you will remember, the position of that remarkable 
man of genius, Nietzsche ; and, if only for that 
reason, deserves a moment's consideration. Not 
only did Nietzsche believe it on physical grounds 
60 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

to be true — on which point I leave him to the 
tender mercies of physicists^ — but — and this is 
what interests us here — he welcomes it as the 
great redeeming hope. He christens it ^^ eternal 
recurrence/' and hails it in this passionate 
refrain : — 

^^ Oh ! How could I fail to be eager for eternity, 
and for the marriage ring of rings, the ring of 
recurrence ? 

Never yet have I found the woman by whom 
I should like to have children, unless it be this 
woman I love ; for I love thee, O eternity ! 

For I love thee, O eternity ! " ^ 

Thus Nietzsche ; but we, do we agree with 
him ? Do we, too, love this eternity ? The 
answer seems plain. So far as a man judges any 
life, his own or another's, to be valuable, here 
and now, in and for itself, apart from any consid- 
eration of immortality, he will reasonably desire 
that it should be repeated as often as possible, 
rather than occur once and never again ; for the 
positive value he finds in it will be reproduced in 
each repetition. On the other hand, so far as he 
finds any life in itself not to be valuable, or that 
its value depends upon some other kind of 
immortality, the prospect held out by Nietzsche 

1 '* Thus spake Zarathustra, " Eng. Trans, by A. Tille, 
WorkSj vol. viii., p. 341. 

61 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

will leave him cold or fill him with dismay. This 
Nietzsche himself quite candidly recognizes. 
^' Alas I " he says^ in another place — 

^^Alas ! man recurreth eternally ! The small man 
recurreth eternally I 

Once I had seen both naked^ the greatest man 
and the smallest man — all-too-like unto each 
other — all-too-human even the greatest man I 

All-too-small the greatest one ! That was my 
satiety of man. And eternal recurrence even 
of the smallest one ! That was my satiety of all 
existence. 

Alas ! loathing ! loathing I loathing ! '* 

We may say^ then^ with Nietzsche's clear ap- 
proval — and I am sure common sense agrees with 
him — that such an immortality is valuable only 
for valuable Uves. And Nietzsche^ I fear^ would 
not admit value in the lives of any of us in this 
room ; for the valuable men are the men yet to 
come^ the Super-men. Stilly we may, many of us, 
differing from Nietzsche, think our own lives 
valuable, in and for themselves, and in that case 
we may reasonably desire the only immortality 
Nietzsche can promise us. On the other hand, 
there is no reason, that I have been able to 
discover, for accepting Nietzsche's cosmology. 
Quite other possibilities may, for aught we know, 
be open to us. And we may proceed to examine 
62 



^ 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

whether there are not conceptions of immortality 
which we should hold to be more desirable than 
this. Hitherto we have been dealing with the 
idea of prolongations or repetitions of life on 
earth. Let us now extend our imaginations to 
possibilities farther from our experience. 

And firsts let us take the Christian conception 
of immortality ; and let us take it in its simple 
uncompromising form^ the last judgment, and 
then heaven or hell for all eternity. I am aware, 
of course, that it is not in this form that many or 
most Christians now conceive the life after death. 
But the old and simple view is of philosophic as 
well as historic importance ; and it is well worth 
considering here. Without discussing, at present, 
the exact nature of heaven and hell, and assuming 
the orthodox descriptions to be allegorical, let us 
suppose that by heaven we mean all that the 
noblest men would desire, and by hell all that 
the basest men would fear ; and let us ask. 
Would an immortality involving both heaven and 
hell be more desirable than extinction } From 
the humanitarian point of view, which is now so 
prevalent, and with which I, at any rate, have no 
intention of quarrelling, I believe most men would 
reply that extinction would be better. Most 
good men who might with reason expect heaven 
would, I suspect, prefer to resign it if they can 
63 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

only have it on condition that others — no matter 
though they be the wicked — are enduring hell. 
This^ to my mind, is a notable advance on the 
morality exhibited in the often quoted passage of 
TertuUian.i But it must be remembered that 
spirits much nobler and profounder than he have 
accepted with solemn and deliberate approbation 
the doctrine of hell. Remember the astounding 
words of Dante, written over the gate of his 
Inferno : ^^ It w^as justice that moved my High 
Maker ; Divine Power made me. Wisdom Supreme, 
and Primal Love." Was Dante, then, less humane 
than smaller men of to-day } 1 doubt it ; he had 
a deeper spring of tenderness as well as of stern- 
ness. But — and this is the point I want you to 
consider — he believed in retribution. That, I 
think, is the root of the Christian idea, so far as 
it does not spring from mere cupidity or cruelty. 
That the wicked should be punished and the good 

^ See Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^ vol. 
ii., p. 27 of Bury's edition. The passage is as follows : — 

** How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how 
exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs and fancied 
gods groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness ; so many 
magistrates, who persecuted in the name of the Lord, 
liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against 
the Christians ; so many sage philosophers blushing in 
red-hot flames, with their deluded scholars ; so many 
celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal not of 
Minos, but of Christ ; so many tragedians, more tuneful 
in the expression of their own sufferings ; so many 

dancers " But here Gibbon cuts short the quotation, 

and there is no reason for me to prolong it. 

64 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

rewarded^ that^ it affirms^ is_, in itself, a positive 
good far greater than happiness or perfection. 
The view is by no means extinct; it underlies^ 
I believe^ most men's attitude towards punish- 
ment^ in spite of the superficial prevalence of 
utilitarianism : it was passionately preached by 
Carlyle ; ^ and I have myself heard a philosopher 

^ See Latter 'day Pamphlets. No. 2. Model Prisons. 

" And so you take criminal caitiffs, murderers, and the 
like, and hang them on gibbets * for an example to deter 
others.' Whereupon arise friends of humanity, and 
object. With very great reason, as I consider, if your 
hypothesis be correct. What right have you to hang any 
poor creature ' for an example ' ? He can turn round upon 
you and say, ' Why make an ** example " of me, a merely 
ill-situated, pitiable man ? Have you no more respect for 
misfortune ? Misfortune, I have been told, is sacred. And 
yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands ; choke 
the life out of me, for an example ! Again I ask, Why 
make an example of me^ for your own convenience alone ? ' 
— All * revenge ' being out of the question, it seems to me 
the caitiff is unanswerable ; and he and the philanthropic 
platforms have the logic all on their side. 

*'The one answer to him is: 'Caitiff, we hate thee; 
and discern for some six thousand years now, that we are 
called upon by the whole Universe to do it. Not with a 
diabolic, but with a divine hatred. God himself, we have 
always understood, *' hates sin," with a most authentic, 
celestial, and eternal hatred. A hatred, a hostility 
inexorable, unappeasable, which blasts the scoundrel, and 
all scoundrels ultimately, into black annihilation and 
disappearance from the sum of things. The path of it as 
the path of a flaming sword : he that has eyes may see 
it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely 
terrible, through the chaotic gulf of Human History, and 
everywhere burning, as with unquenchable fire, the false 
and death-worthy from the true and life-worthy ; making 
all Human History, and the Biography of every man, a 
God's Cosmos in place of a Devil's Chaos. So is it, in 
the end ; even so, to every man who is a man, and not 
a mutinous beast, and has eyes to see. To thee, caitiff, 
P 65 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

(need I say he was a Scotchman ?) argue that a 
world containing crime is better than a world free 
from it^ because the punishment of crime is so 
transcendent a Good. I leave it to your own 
reflections to what extent you share these views. 
For my own part^ in my deliberate judgment^ 
I regard them with something approaching 
horror. I do not hold that there is any value in 
punishment^ except in so far as it improves the 
criminal or deters others from crime. Whether, 
and to what extent, the idea of hell has ever 
deterred from crime I do not now inquire. In 
any case, it is the idea, not the fact, that has 
deterred ; so that, from this point of view, the 
most that could be said to be desirable would be 
that the idea should be maintained, not that there 
should exist any corresponding fact. Even that 
much, however, I could not myself admit ; for I 



these things were and are, quite incredible ; to us they 
are too awfully certain, — the Eternal Law of this 
Universe, whether thou and others will believe it or 
disbelieve. We, not to be partakers in thy destructive 
adventure of defying God and all the Universe, dare not 
allow thee to continue longer among us. As a palpable 
deserter from the ranks where all men, at theh eternal 
peril, are bound to be : palpable deserter, taken with the 
red hand fighting thus against the whole Universe and its 
Laws, we — send thee back into the whole Universe, 
solemnly expel thee from our community ; and will in the 
name of God, not with joy and exultation, but with 
sorrow stern as thy own, hang thee on Wednesday next, 
and so end.'" 

66 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

believe the penalties of human law to be a surer 
deterrent^ so far and so long as such deterrents 
are necessary at all. I do not think^ therefore^ 
that even the idea^ much le^s the fact^ of hell, has 
any justification from that point of view. And as 
to the improvement of the criminal, that is ruled 
out in the Christian hell, for it is precisely part of 
his punishment that he is, and knows himself to 
be, eternally wicked. I judge, then, and I expect 
that most of you agree with me, that if we desire 
immortality, it is not for the sake of retribu- 
tion, regarded either as a good in itself or as a 
means to good ; and that being so, the notion of 
hell, left stripped of that support, is so dreadful 
that we should prefer universal extinction to an 
immortality involving that. 

If this contention be accepted, it is natural next 
to suggest that the immortality that is desirable 
would be some kind of heaven not conditioned by 
the existence of a hell. But in that case, what 
are we to mean by heaven ? If I am not much 
mistaken, there are few intelligent people — 
probably there is no one in this audience — who 
look forward with real satisfaction to the traditional 
Christian heaven. It has always been extraordin- 
arily difficult to picture a condition of perfect 
satisfaction and goodness. The ^^Paradiso'* of 
Dante is indeed, for its superhuman beauty, an 
P2 67 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

achievement one might have thought must be 
impossible to human genius. Yet do we feel 
exactly that we wish to enter it ? And no one is 
likely, I think, in such a matter to surpass Dante. 
My conclusion is that the object of our desire is in 
fact unknown to us, and unimaginable save in the 
faintest and most symbolical adumbrations. Does 
it follow, then, that we have no interest in heaven .'* 
I do not think so. But rather, that by heaven we 
really mean the ultimate term of a process in which 
we are engaged, of the end of which we can only 
say that it is Good. I say ^^we" ; and I say so 
because I think that there are many people who 
in this matter agree with me ; otherwise I should 
hardly be speaking here. But at this point it may 
really be more modest to say ^^I," to tell you 
simply how I feel, and to ask you whether you 
feel the same. 

I find, then, that, to me, in my present experi- 
ence, the thing that at bottom matters most is the 
sense I have of something in me making for more 
hfe and better. All my pain is at last a feeUng 
of the frustration of this ; all my happiness a feel- 
ing of its satisfaction. I do not know what this 
is ; I am not prepared to give a coherent account 
of it ; I ought not, very likely, to call it ^^ it," and 
to imply the category of substance. I will abandon, 
if necessary, under criticism, any particular terms 
68 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

in which I may try to describe it ; I will abandon 
anything except Itself. For It is real. It governs 
all my experience, and determines all my judg- 
ments of value. If pleasure hampers it, I do not 
desire pleasure ; if pain furthers it, I do desire 
pain. And what I feel in myself, I infer in others. 
If I may be allowed to use that ambiguous and 
question-begging word ^^ soul/' then I agree with 
the poet Browning that ^^ little else is worth study 
save the development of a soul.'' This is to me 
the bottom fact of experience. And no one can 
go any further with me in my argument who does 
not find in my words an indication, however im- 
perfect, of something which he knows, in his own 
life, to be real. 

What, then, is it that this which I call the 
^^soul " seeks } It seeks what is Good ; but it does 
not know what is ultimate Good. As a seven- 
teenth-century writer has well put it : ^^ We love 
we know not what, and therefore everything 
allures us. As iron at a distance is drawn by the 
loadstone, there being some invisible communi- 
cation between them, so is there in us a world of 
Love to somewhat, though we know not what in 
the world that should be. There are invisible 
ways of conveyance by which some great thing 
doth touch our souls, and by which we tend to it. 
Do you not feel yourself drawn by the expectation 
69 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

and desire of some great thing? *' ^ This ^^ great 
thing " it is our business to find out by experience. 
We do find many good things^ but there are always 
other and better beyond. That is why it is 
hazardous to ^x one's ideal^ and say finally, ^^ This 
or that would be heaven." For we may find, as 
the voyagers did in Browning's ^^ Paracelsus," that 
the real heaven lies always beyond ; beyond each 
Good we may attain here ; but also, which is my 
present point, beyond death. The whole strength 
of the case for immortality, as a thing to be 
desired, lies in the fact that no one in this life 
attains his ideal. The soul, even of the best and 
the most fortunate of us, does not achieve the 
Good of which she feels herself to be capable and 
in which alone she can rest. The potentiality is 
not fully realized. I do not infer from this that 
life has no value if the Beyond is cut off. That, I 
think, is contrary to most men's experience. The 
Goods we have here are real Goods, and we may 
find the Evil more than compensated by them. 
But what I do maintain is that life here would 
have indefinitely more value if we knew that 
beyond death we should pursue, and ultimately to 
a successful issue, the elusive ideal of which we 
are always in quest. The conception that death 
ends all does not empty life of its worth ; but it 
^ Traherne, Centuries of MeditatioUy p. 3. 
70 



IS IMxMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

destroys^ in my judgment^ its most precious 
element that which transfigures all the rest ; it 
obliterates the gleam on the snow^ the planet in 
the east ; it shuts off the great adventure^ the 
adventure beyond death. 

Every one almost^ I cannot help thinkings who 
feels at all on such matters^ must feel with me on 
this pointy if he could give his feelings full sway 
unchecked by his denials or his doubts. Every 
one not immediately in the grip of intolerable 
Evil^ but looking back with impassioned contem- 
plation on Good and Evil alike^ must desire^ I 
believe^ to journey on in the quest of Good^ 
whatever Evil he may encounter on the route. 
Americans at least, I like to suppose, will respond 
to their own poet when in the passion of his 
visionary voyage from West to East, from present 
to past and future, he calls on his soul to embark 
for an adventure more hazardous and more 
alluring — 

"Passage, immediate passage ! the blood burns in my veins ! 
Away soul ! hoist instantly the anchor ! 
Cut the hawsers — haul out — shake out every sail ! 
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long 

enough ? 
Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and 

drinking like mere brutes ? 
Have we not darkened and dazed ourselves with books 

long enough ? 
Sail forth — steer for the deep waters only, 

71 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

Reckless soul exploring, I with thee, and thou with me ; 

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, 

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. 

my brave soul ! 

farther, farther sail ! 

daring joy, but safe ! are they not all the seas of God ? 

farther, farther, sail ! " 

My contention^ then^ is that immortality is 
desirable^ if immortality means a fortunate issue 
to the quest of our souls. But the use of the 
word soul reminds me of a whole series of ambi- 
guities and confusions which I must not pass over 
in silence. The subject of the IngersoU lecture 
is the '^ Immortality of Man/' and '^ Man " might 
conceivably be taken to mean Humanity. Posi- 
tivists hold that the only immortality which an 
individual can expect is the perpetuation of his 
influence and of his memory among future genera- 
tions. This abiding memory and record Comte 
named ^^ subjective immortality/' and held out^ as 
the great stimulus to good conduct^ the prospect 
of admission into the company of positivist saints. 
A similar view is held by many men of more 
imagination and less pedantry than Comte. Thus 
George Meredith is constantly exhorting us to 
live in our offspring, physical or spiritual, and 
to dismiss from our minds as at once silly and 
base any desire for a continuance of personal life.^ 

^ See, e.g.y his poems, Earth amd Man a>nd A Faithon Trial* 

72 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

That this kind of immortality may really be, to 
some minds, desirable, I do not dispute ; nor do I 
deny it a certain nobility. But it is not what 
men commonly have in mind, nor what I have 
had in mind, in considering this question. I have 
meant the perpetuation of one's ^^self" beyond 
death, the realization of one's ideal in one's self, 
not in some other people to be possibly produced 
in some indefinite future. 

But, then, what is this ^^self" of which I 
argue that it is desirable it shall be perpetuated ? 
This is a very difficult question, on which I 
can here only touch ; but it may be worth while 
to distinguish two views. First, the soul or self 
may be regarded simply as a substance ; and 
in postulating it as immortal we may mean 
merely that the substance is not destroyed by 
death. In this view no continuity of consciousness 
is assumed. It is held that we shall survive death 
but shall not be aware of it, just as there may lie 
behind our present lives a series of other lives of 
which we have no knowledge. The identity of 
the person, in this view, consists, not in his know- 
ing himself to be the same person, but in his being 
so in fact. The whole series of his actions and 
feelings in one life are determined by those of a 
previous, and determine those of a subsequent life. 
Every lesson learned, every faculty acquired, 
73 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

every relation formed at any stage^ is carried over 
into the next ; so that^ for example, the musical 
faculty of an infant prodigy might be the conse- 
quence of musical training in a previous life, and 
love at first sight the consequence of affections 
fostered in earlier incarnations. The question, 
then, for us to raise is, whether that kind of 
immortality would be desirable ? Most people, I 
believe, would be inclined, to begin with, to 
answer in the negative. For, they might urge, it 
is to all intents and purposes exactly the same 
thing whether my present personality is deter- 
mined completely by my ancestors and my en- 
vironment, as it is on the positivist assumptions, 
or whether it is determined by some substance 
which you call ^^me," but of which I have not 
and never shall have any memory or care, and 
which again, in some future phase, will have no 
memory or care for the present *^^me.'' 

This view is plausible and natural, but I think 
I dissent from it. I am inclined to agree with 
Dr. McTaggart,^ when he argues that a survival 
of the substance of one's self would be desirable, 
even though it carried with it no consciousness of 
survival. It is, I think, a really consoling idea 
that our present capacities are determined by our 
previous actions, and that our present actions 
^ Some Dogmas of Religion, p. 127. 
74 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

again will determine our future character. It 
seems to liberate us from the bonds of an ex- 
ternal fate and make us the captains of our own 
destinies. If we have formed here a beautiful 
relation^ it will not perish at death but be per- 
petuated^ albeit unconsciously, in some future 
life. If we have developed a faculty here, it will 
not be destroyed, but will be the starting-point of 
later developments. Again, if we suffer, as most 
people do, from imperfections and misfortunes, it 
would be consoling to believe that these were 
punishinents of our own acts in the past, not mere 
effects of the acts of other people, or of an indiffer- 
ent nature over which we have no control. The 
world, I think, on this hypothesis would at least 
seem juster than it does on the positivist view, 
and that in itself would be a great gain. I agree, 
therefore, with Dr. McTaggart that an immortality 
which should imply the continuance of a self- 
substance even without a self-consciousness, would 
be desirable. But I also hold that much more 
desirable would be an immortality which carried 
with it a continuance of consciousness. Let us 
now take that hypothesis and consider how much 
or how little is implied in such continuance. 

To begin with, then, our present experience 
tells us that complete memory is not essential to 
continuity of consciousness. The content of our 
75 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

memory is^ in fact^ always changing. Some 
things drop out and others come in. Parts of 
our past may disappear^ temporarily at leasts from 
our consciousness^ so that to be told of them is 
like being told of the experience of some other 
person. Again^ ever}^ night-, in sleep^ there is a 
complete break in continuity. So that we may 
say that we should consider ourselves the same 
person after death if there were just enough 
continuity for us to know and judge that we, who 
are dead^ are that same person who just now was 
alive. True^ much more than this is implied in 
what most people who take any interest in the 
subject demand or hope from immortality. They 
hope^ in particular^ to meet again friends they 
have loved here ; and there must be few people 
who^ in the face of deaths have not felt this 
desire. It is^ of course^ possible that this might 
occur^ and I agree that it would be desirable. 
But even apart from that possibihty I am 
quite clear that it would be desirable that 
this same person who now is should continue 
to exist after death_, and to know that he 
is the same person ; and that this continued 
existence should involve the possibihty of a 
development of latent faculties for Good up 
to that perfection after which^ -without being 
able fully to define it_, we are always seeking. 
76 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

As to the whole content of what would be 
desirable^ I should think it wise to reserve 
judgment till fuller experience and knowledge 
enlighten us. 

In particular^ I hesitate to dogmatize on one 
point which is raised by the philosophies and 
religions of mysticism. Is it conceivable that 
what would really be good would be that our self 
should somehow be taken up into a larger World- 
self? I use purposely the ambiguous phrase 
"taken up'* because I wish further to dis- 
tinguish. If it be meant that our self should be 
absorbed in another^ so as to lose its identity and 
consciousness^ then I cannot see in that anything 
good or desirable. But if it were possible to be 
included in a larger self without losing one's own 
self^ so that one could say, " I am somehow that 
Self,'' then, for aught I know, that might be good 
and the best. But since most of us in the West 
would, I suppose, admit that such a condition is 
one of which we have not even a proximate 
experience, this notion can only remain for us 
a mere idea or possibility which we cannot begin 
to fill in with the imagination. 

To sum up, then, the immortality which I hold 
to be desirable, and which I suggest to you as 
desirable, is one in which a continuity of experi- 
ence analogous to that which we are aware of 
77 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

here is carried on into a life after death, the 
essence of that life being the continuous unfold- 
ing^ no doubt through stress and conflict, of those 
potentialities of Good of which we are aware here 
as the most significant part of ourselves. I hold 
that the desirability of this is a matter of plain 
fact, and that in putting it forward I am giving 
no evidence of superstition, weakness, or egotism, 
but, on the contrary, am recognizing the deepest 
element in human nature. Some of you, prob- 
ably, will agree with this ; others will strongly 
disagree ; and to those who disagree I have no 
further arguments to address ; we disagree 
invincibly and finally. 

But there is one point on which I must touch 
in conclusion. For even those who agree with 
me on the question of desirability may still hold 
that it is of httle use to put forward as desirable 
something which we cannot know to be true, or 
which, as they may hold, we know not to be true. 
It was with this point that I began, and wdth it I 
will finish. I must repeat, then, that it is mere 
dogmatism to assert that we do not survive death, 
and mere prejudice or inertia to assert that it is 
impossible to discover whether we do or no. We 
in the West have hardly even begun to inquire 
into the matter ; and scientific method and critical 
faculty were never devoted to it, so far as I am 
78 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

aware^ previous to the foundation_, some quarter 
of a century ago, of the Society for Psychical 
Research. There are, and always have been, a 
number of alleged facts suggesting prima facie the 
survival of death. But these facts have always 
been exploited by superstition and credulity, or 
repudiated by the prejudices of enlightenment. 
They are now, at last, being systematically and 
deliberately explored by men and women of 
intelligence and good faith bent on ascertaining 
the truth. It would be premature to suggest that 
any truth on this subject has been ascertained ; 
but it is my own opinion that the recent investiga- 
tions conducted by the Society, and published in 
their Proceedings,^ have made it incumbent upon 
students to take into serious account the hypo- 

^ See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
Parts 53, 55, 57. Maclehose & Co., Glasgow. These 
volumes contain the record of a series of automatic 
writings purporting to be inspired by certain well-known 
men recently deceased. That they purport to be so 
inspired is, of course, in itself, no evidence that they are 
so. But the writings involve very curious and complicated 
correspondences between messages given independently 
to different automatists in different places. Such corre- 
spondences are conceivably explicable by a great extension 
of the hypothesis of telepathy ; but there is an apparently 
deliberate effort to render that explanation as little 
plausible as possible. Altogether the writings present a 
very difficult and interesting problem in evidence as to 
which it would probably be premature at present to come 
to any final conclusion. But the hypothesis that the 
messages do really proceed from the persons from whom 
they profess to proceed must, I think, be seriously 
considered. 

79 



RELIGIOX AND IMMORTALITY 

thesis that persons survive death. The fact o 
sunival, it is true, would not carry with it the 
proof of immortahtv in the strict sense of the 
term; but it would destroy the principal argu 
ment against it. Such inquiries, therefore, it 
might be supposed, and such results would excite 
a very widespread interest. Yet such is not the 
case ; and I beheve the reason to be that there 
is no general comiction that the question is one 
of immense importance to the value of life.i My 
contention is that it is ; that there is a kind Jl 
immortality which, if it were a fact, would be 
a very desii-able one. To ask the question, as I 
have been doing, whether you agree with me 
in this, to incite you to sift your feelings and to 
make yourselves clear as to what they really are, 
is therefore, in my opinion, a procedure which 
has a direct bearing upon the pursuit of positive 
knowledge. For unless you think it really im- 
portant to know the truth, you ^vill never pursue 
it nor encourage those who do. You ^vill content 
yourselves with a lazy acquiescence either in the 
dogmas of rehgion or in those of science, and will 
regard inquirers who take the question seriously 
1 See a paper by Dr. Schiller {Proceedings of the Societv 
for Psychical Research, Part 49) discussing the answers 
Obtained to a "Questionnaire" regarding human senti- 
ment as to a future life, which was undertaken a few 
years ago by Dr. Richard Hodgson and the American 
Uranch of the S.P.R. 

80 



IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? 

either as harmless cranks or as disreputable 
charlatans. Many of them are^ but some of them 
are not^ and none of them need be from the 
nature of the topic. And in asking you to-night^ 
as clearly as I can^ the question^ Do you want 
immortality^ and in what form ? I conceive my- 
self to be doing something very practical. I am 
not merely asking you — though that in itself is 
important — to become clear 'v^ith yourselves on 
a point of values ; I am asking you further to 
take seriously a branch of scientific inquiry which 
may have results more important than any other 
that is being pursued in our time. 



81 



IV 

EUTHANASIA: BEING LINES FROM THE 
NOTE-BOOK OF AN ALPINIST 

Sagt es Niemand, nur den Weisen, 
Weil die Menge gleich verhbhnet, 

Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen 

Das nach Flammentod sich sehnet. 

Goethe. 

I. In the Hut. 

I AM not in the habit of recording my 
impressions ; and if I do so now^ in a solitary 
hut among the mountains^, it is not from idleness, 
or loneliness^ or the love of introspection; it is 
because I am undergoing a strange experience. 
The door, at which I have beaten so long in vain, 
is swinging open, and giving me glimpses into 
that other world I have long divined but never 
been able to enter. My sensations and thoughts 
point beyond themselves. The boundary between 
perception and imagination, between thought and 
intuition, is blurred. Things are become symbols, 
ideas realities ; and all forms of matter or mind 
are but a metaphor of the Truth I begin more 
directly to apprehend. 

I noticed this first on my way up the valley. 
The sounds and scents, the colours and forms, 
82 



EUTHANASIA 

were not only lovely^ as always ; they were signi- 
ficant of inward states. The bluebells hung their 
heads in adoration^ the marguerites gazed upward 
rapt with joy ; the blue gentian blazed from the 
rock a hymn of ecstasy ; the rush of the stream 
was an apocalypse. Everything was pressing on^ 
under the stress of desire^ out of itself and up to 
something higher. The rock and the soil^ by an 
inward need^ broke into a wilderness of flowers ; 
the water went up as vapour and put on the glory 
of light. The earth in all her myriad forms 
aspired into heaven^ and with innumerable 
voices sang the joy of her deliverance. All I 
had ever thought or hoped unrolled before me 
as vision. My philosophy had taken form^ and its 
form was the real world. Such was the symbol of 
the valley ; but as I left it there came a change. 
The sun dropped behind the mountains^ and my 
path led me out from the meadows and the pines 
into a waste of rocks. I was on the moraine^ 
and then on the glacier. On either side jagged 
cliffs hung huge and formless. The dull roar of 
torrents^ the tinkle of runnels in the ice^ made 
the silence more intense and dreadful. The rose 
of evening died away in the east. It caught the 
snow a moment^ then left it colder than before, 
pale green and ghostly white against the crescent 
moon. The crescent moon followed the sun down 
83 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

a primrose sky ; and presently the world of stars 
looked down on the world of ice. 

The hut was empty. I chopped some wood and 
made a fire^ fetched water from the spring and 
cooked my evening meal. For an hour or more I 
have lain in the straw and tried to sleep ; in vain ! 
That door swings ajar; symbols besiege me and 
press for interpretation. The stars burn brighter 
and brighter; the torrents roar; and the glacier 
gleams^ cold and white^ coiled in the jaws of the 
abyss. It is the type of deaths as the valley was 
of life. And it is to wrestle with death that I am 
here alone. 

But I dare not face him yet ; I recognize that I 
am afraid. Let me turn back then to hfe^ and 
record^ for my assurance^ the truth my thought 
has long divined and vision to-day confirmed. 
Nothing exists but individuals in the making. 
All things Hve^ yes^ even those w^e call inanimate. 
A soul^ or a myriad souls^ inform the rocks and 
streams and winds. Innumerable centres of life 
leap in joy down the torrent ; or it may be some 
diffused and elemental spirit singly sustains that 
ever-flowing form. The sea is a passion^ the air 
and the light a will and a desire. All things 
together^ each in his kind^ each in his rank, press 
upwards, moved by love, to a goal that is good. 
What that goal is, I do not too closely inquire; 
84 



EUTHANASIA 

neither do I ask after the origin or meaning of 
the Whole. I cHng to the fact I know, to move- 
ment and its cause ; the fact I know from the 
soul of Man and infer in Nature. What He is. 
She is ; and what He is, I know. He is discord 
straining to harmony, ignorance to knowledge, 
fear to courage, hate and indifference to love. 
He is a system out of equilibrium, and therefore 
moving towards it ; he is the fall of the stone, the 
flow of the stream, the orbit of the star, rendered 
in the truth of passion and desire. To apprehend 
Reality is the goal of his eternal quest. Eating, 
touching, seeing, hearing, thinking, imagining, are 
his progressive effort to seize that mystery. The 
alien thing that confronts him, and his impulse and 
need to find it akin, are the poles on which his 
universe is hung. They are the eyes of the 
Sphinx, into which I look and pass on, reading in 
their light the life of Man. Driven at first by 
instinct, he comes to understand himself by the 
illumination of brain and soul. Upon his night of 
primitive greed, lit by the stars of sense, rises in 
due course the sun of thought and imagination. 
It shows us our world, but shows us also its 
boundaries. The horizons of birth and death shut 
us in. And even of the interspace we are not 
free, for we are pent in our own faculties. 
Something these reveal, but most they hide. We 
85 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

have five senses^ but we have no more ; we have a 
brain, but its convolutions are numbered ; we have 
a heart, but its beats are timed. Born into a 
shell, we grow till we reach its hmits ; the rest 
is retrocession or frustration. To shatter the shell 
is the destiny of life ; but it can only be shattered 
by death. There is the paradox of our being. 
If death be death, life is not life ; if life be life, 
death is not death. For either Hfe is nothing, 
or it is the overcoming of death. That I know, 
and to that pass I am come. All I can do in this 
prison of the flesh, I have done ; I have learnt 
what I can learn, and I have felt what I can feel. 
At every point my growing soul presses against 
her walls. And now at last they begin to crack. 
Beams of strange light shoot here and there across 
the darkness ; liquid notes break upon the silence. 
I am ripe for my metamorphosis ; and yet, oh 
shame I I know that I fear it. And before me 
lies the symbol of my fear, the space, the cold, the 
solitude, the uncommunicating Powers. Above 
me shine the eternal stars, whither I am bound. 
But my way is over the mountain. Have I the 
courage to climb ? 

II. On the Summit, 

Of all the dawns that I have watched in the 
mountains, never was one like that I saw to-day. 
I forgot the glacier, and was aware only of the 
86 



EUTHANASIA 

stars. Through the chinks in my prison wall 
they blazed brighter and brighter^ till where they 
shone it fell away^ and I looked out on the Past. 
I knew myself to be more than myself, an epitome 
of the generations ; and I travelled again^ from 
the source^ my life which is the life of Man. I 
was a shepherd pasturing flocks on star-lit plains 
of Asia; I was an Egyptian priest on his tower 
conning the oracles of the sky ; I was a Greek 
sailor with Bootes and Orion for my guides ; I was 
Endymion entranced on mountains of Arcady. I 
saw the star of Bethlehem and heard the angels 
sing ; I spoke with Ptolemy^ and watched the 
night with Galileo. A thousand times I had died^ 
a thousand times been born. By those births and 
deaths my course was marked through the night 
of Time. But now I had come to the sunrise. 
The stars began to fade ; and solemn and slow the 
flower of dawn unfolded crystal petals^ budded a 
violet^ and blossomed a rose. The mountains lit 
their altars of amaranthine fire ; and into his palace 
thus prepared rolled the chariot of the god, to the 
sound of the marching music to which creation 
moves. 

I could not see the god, but I heard the music ; 

and hearing it, I overcame fear. I was on the 

ice-slope, hung between the abyss and the sky. 

The chips of ice rattled and clinked to measure- 

87 



RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY 

less depths below^ and my nerves and senses 
shivered to hear them as they fell. But the very 
stress of anguish set my spirit free. As with a 
knife^ that passage cut her loose from the flesh. 
Earth to earth, dust to dust ; let the body drop 
back to the pit. But the soul has wings ; and on 
the summit mine spread hers. For there at last 
I fronted the sun and the new world. The other 
world has vanished away, I know not how or 
whither. Before me stretches an ocean, un- 
travelled and unplumbed ; and sheer from its 
waters rise afar cliffs of rosy snow. The wall be- 
tween me and the future is down ; the sun streams 
through ; and in my ears, more loud and more 
clear, sounds the marching music, to which I move, 
and with me all creation. Long I have known its 
echo, prisoned in imperishable verse by one who 
caught it while he was yet in the body. The call 
he heard I hear now ; and in his words I interpret 
its meaning — 

"That Light whose smile kindles the universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
That Benediction which the eclipsing curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which through the web of Being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and sky and tree 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. " 



Richard Clay if <Son«, Limited, London and Jiungay, 



SEP 9 1011 



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